Recollections of a happy life, being the autobiography of Marianne North

RECOLLECTIONS OF A HAPPY LIFE

VOL. I

RECOLLECTIONS

OF

A HAPPY LIFE

BEING THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF

MARIANNE NORTH

EDITED BY HEE SISTER

MRS. JOHN ADDINGTON SYMONDS

IN TWO VOLUMES
VOL. I.

Jieto gorfc
MACMILLAN AND CO.

AND LONDON
1894

ft,

Ml rights reserved x

PREFACE

THIS story of my sister's life was the work of her first
two years at Alderley. She put it into the hands of her
friend, Sir Joseph Hooker, who undertook to negotiate
with Messrs. Macmillan for its publication. They agreed
to take it upon condition of certain retrenchments, which
she was then far too ill to make, and the manuscript was
put by till after her death.

As it now stands, her earlier journeys in Europe,
Egypt, and Syria have been cut out entirely and the
first chapters compressed. The later and most interest-
ing journeys remain, except for minor points, which had
to be revised, just as she left them.

By the advice of her oldest friend (and my own), Mr.
Francis Galton, the spelling of Indian names and places
has been altered to the system now adopted by the
Government of India. These chapters have been kindly
revised for me by our friend and neighbour here, Major-
General M. E. Haig. . . . Mr. Galton had the still more
puzzling names of Java verified and corrected for the book
at the Koyal Geographical Society.

The proofs of the diaries throughout have been most
kindly read and revised by Mr. Botting Hemsley, of the

vi Preface

Herbarium, Eoyal Gardens, Kew, without whose generous
help the book must have contained many botanical errors.
My sister was no botanist in the technical sense of the
term : her feeling for plants in their beautiful living
personality was more like that which we all have for
human friends. She could never bear to see flowers use-
lessly gathered — their harmless lives destroyed.

Of the portraits (reproduced by Obernetter),the vignette
by Williams, at the age of thirty-four, is the best likeness.
The frontispiece to the second volume, which represents
her standing on the doorstep of her house at Alderley,
was done by a neighbour, Mrs. Bryan Hodgson, on her
first arrival there, and sent out to her old friends as a
standing invitation to visit her in her new home. It
has her signature, and tells its own story : the last line
of the autobiography, the close of her happy life.

J. C. S.
DAVOS.

CONTENTS

CHAPTER I

PAGE

EARLY DAYS AND HOME LIFE 1

CHAPTER II
CANADA AND UNITED STATES ... .39

CHAPTER III

JAMAICA ........ 80

CHAPTER IV

BRAZIL . ..... 113

CHAPTER V
HIGHLANDS OF BRAZIL ..... 156

CHAPTER VI

TENERIFFE— CALIFORNIA— JAPAN— SINGAPORE 191

viii Contents

CHAPTER VII

PAGE
BOBNEO AND JAVA ... . 236

CHAPTER VIII
CEYLON AND HOME ....... 299

CHAPTER IX
INDIA ...... 322

THE

SHEWING THE C
MISS NORTH (Ri
PARTIALLY I LI
COLLECT

3RLD

R I ES VISITED BY
D OTHER FLORAS
RATED IN THE
(GREEN).

..X

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CHAPTER I

EARLY DAYS AND HOME LIFE

IT began at Hastings in 1830, but as I have no recollections
of that time, the gap of unreason shall be filled with a short
account of my progenitors. My fourth great grandfather
was Eoger, the youngest son of Dudley, fourth Lord North of
Kirtling, and Anne, daughter of Sir Charles Montagu. He
had been Attorney-General under James II, and wrote the
lives of his three brothers — the Lord Keeper Guilford; Sir
Dudley, Commissioner of the Treasury to King Charles the
Second ; and Doctor John North, Master of Trinity College,
Cambridge. The portraits of these famous brothers and of
their grandfather, the third Lord North, were among the first
things which impressed me with childish awe, in our dining-
room at home.

For Roger I had an especial respect, as the brown curly
wig was said to be all his own, and not stuck on with pins
driven into his head as my doll's wig was, and I thought he
used to look down on me individually with a calm expression
of approval. I liked to make my father tell me stories about
him, and how the great Lord Clarendon had written in his
journal "that he and one other were the only two honest
lawyers ho knew," that he was one of those who found time
for everything, for music and painting as well as law,
and when he tired of the latter work and the political
squabbles of the time, he retired to the old hall at Rougham,

OPOL. I & B

°

2 Recollections of a Happy Life CHAP.

in Norfolk, and employed Vater Schmidt to build him the
best organ which could be made, on which he used to play
the works of Corelli and Purcell. He wrote histories of
music, building, and architecture, and covered his walls with
pictures, including duplicates of many of the lovely but soul-
less beauties of his friend, Sir Peter Lely. He had also built
a library attached to the church, in which he deposited many
curious and valuable books, including the Oriental manuscripts
collected by his niece Dudleya North, whose great knowledge
of languages would have been remarkable in any age.

Roger lived on at Rougham ("out of the way," he called
it truly) to a good old age, and as he wrote on his own
epitaph, " freely communicated to all, without fee or reward,
that great knowledge of the laws whereby he had formerly
acquired the moderate fortune he died possessed of."

His son Roger had not wit enough even to add the date
of his father's death to his epitaph. He had a vile temper,
and flogged his son Fountain to such a degree that the boy ran
away to sea, and stayed there till his father's death left him
Squire of Rougham — a place he hated from old associations —
so he never went near it again, and ordered the house to be
blown up with gunpowder, as it was too solidly built to be
pulled down easily. All its contents were dispersed and sold
by public auction, and even now rare old books and pictures
may be found at sales and markets in the neighbourhood
which once belonged to this collection, while the beauties of
Lely still simper out of their frames at Rainham or Narford.
The sailor-squire cared only for the sea, and in his old age
settled himself as close to it as he could in the first lodging-
house ever let at Hastings, dividing his time between it and a
house he built at Hampstead, with a flat roof, bulwarks, and
portholes, like a man of war's deck, on which he used to pace
up and down, firing off cannon from it on all great occasions
and birthdays. His wife was a farmer's daughter with no
education, but she was a most indefatigable worker of

Early Days and Home Life

worsted-work, and through her (my father used to say) a
certain amount of common sense was reintroduced into the
family. The old Squire had two beautiful sisters, great
riders, who often went over from Rougham to Houghton to
watch Mr. Boydell at his work of engraving the famous
collection of pictures there, which were afterwards sold to the
Empress Catherine of Russia, and lost in the deep sea on their
way out to her. He married one of these Miss Norths, while
Kent the architect (also employed at Houghton) married the
other.

My grandfather Frederick Francis also lived all his life at
Hastings, and never went near Rougham. He married the
Rector's daughter, and did nothing to distinguish himself but
have the gout, which gave him an excuse for a bad temper ;
and my poor father had a Latin grammar thrown at his head
almost before he could speak, " early education " being part of
my grandfather's faith. He had five sons and a daughter, of
whom my father was the eldest; he was born in 1800, and
when a mere child of eight years old was sent to Harrow to
fight his way among his elders, and endure many a hard hour
of bullying and fagging. But he always spoke with pleasure
of those days at school, and his sorrows came more in the
holidays at home. Years afterwards, when opposing the
election of Mr. Brisco, he used to say, it " vexed him to have
to do so, as he could not help remembering how he (a big boy
at Harrow) had interceded with the others to put little North
on the top of the victims who were to be folded up in a press
bed, he was so very small " (a mode of torture very fashion-
able amongst school bullies then).

My father stayed at Harrow till he was Captain of the
school in Dr. Butler's house, and the old Dean used to say
jokingly in his latter years that he would never have been
able to get married, if my father had not kept such good
order in the school and given him time to go a-courting. His %
daughter was one of my first friends, and is my best friend

4 Recollections of a Happy Life CHAP.

still. From Harrow my father went to St. John's, Cambridge,
and in due ' time took his degree of Senior Op., spending
his vacations with an old farmer at Eougham in preference to
his ungenial home, and getting a liking for the old place, its
noble trees and poor neglected people — a liking which
increased with years.

After leaving college he went to Switzerland, put himself
to board with a Geneva family to learn French, walked round
Mont Blanc, picked up some crystals, and finally came back
to the Temple to study law, but instead of doing so, fell in
love with my mother, the beautiful widow of Kobert Shuttle-
worth of Gawthorpe Hall, Lancashire, and eldest daughter of
Sir John Marjoribanks, Bart., of Lees, M.P. for Berwick-
shire ; her mother was a Eamsay of Barnton, and remarkably
small and precise in her ways, and when the almost gigantic
Baronet proposed to her in a box of the Edinburgh theatre,
he received a " hush ! " for his answer, and, " dinnae speak
sae loud, or the folk'll hear," was all the encouragement he
obtained. They both left the world before I came into it. My
mother herself had lived little with them, but was brought up
by her grandfather at Lees, passing her time pleasantly in
picking up pebbles, and throwing them back again into the clear
running river Tweed, and dreaming over Sir Walter Scott's
romances as they came out, having an additional interest in
them from personal acquaintance with the author, on whose
knee she often sat while he told her stories. Her Aunt
Marianne taught her the little she did know ; I was called after
her in gratitude for the teaching, and the name gained me a
legacy from one of her uncles, who on his return from India
found no other memento of his favourite sister but myself, a
small baby.

My mother's first marriage was soon over ; her husband
having upset a coach and four he was driving, died himself,
and nearly caused the death of his wife and of the delicate
child Janet, who was born afterwards. When my father first

Early Days and Home Life

saw my mother she was in deep widow's weeds, trying to
keep the tiny heiress alive in the mildest climate of England,
Hastings. In those days it was a very different place from
what it is now. There were not half-a-dozen regular lodging-
houses, it was (though first of the Cinque Ports) merely a
fishing village. There was no St. Leonards at all, the great
" White Eock " to the west was afterwards removed bit by
bit : it is now only marked by the name written on a portion
of the long two miles of continuous houses that join the towns
of Hastings and St. Leonards. My father was elected mem-
ber for the town in 1830 by ten "Freemen," one of them
being himself.

My first recollections relate to my father. He was from "X v<
first to last the one idol and friend of my life, and apart from
him I had little pleasure and no secrets. He used to carry
me on his shoulders over the hills and far away, down on the
beach to see the fishing-boats land, and the heaps of glittering
slippery fish counted and sold by Dutch auction ; and I well
remember the old fishermen, covered with silver scales, calling
out, " Make way for Muster North and his little gal ! " giving
me kind pats with great salt hands as I, passed perched high on
my father's shoulder through the crowd. People tell me this
is impossible, but I have a strong recollection of seeing the
great dinner given after the passing of the Reform Bill, for
which my father voted, riding or walking home night after
night after the heated divisions to his house at Notting Hill,
and arriving in the small hours of the morning. When that
was over, his health broke down, and he had to give up Parlia-
ment for awhile, and had the more leisure to attend to me.

We had much variety in our life, spending the winter at
Hastings, the spring in London, and dividing the summers
between my half-sister's old hall in Lancashire and a farm-
house at Eougham. We saw many pleasant people in all j
these places, but especially at Hastings. The one who made
the strongest impression on me was Lucie Austin, then at

Recollections of a Happy Life CHAP.

school with Miss Shepherd at Bromley Common. She used
to spend many of her holidays with us while her parents were
abroad, and inspired me with the most profound respect and
admiration, as one raised above ordinary mortals. Her grand
eyes and deep-toned voice, her entire fearlessness and con-
tempt for what people thought of her, charmed me ; then she
had a tame snake, and must surely have been something more
than a woman to tame a snake ! She used to carry her pet
about with her, wound round her arm, inside the loose sleeve
which was then fashionable, and it would put its slender head
out at the wrist- hole and lap milk out of the palm of her
hand with its forked tongue. It was as fond of glittering
things as Lucie herself, and when she took her many rings off
her fingers and placed them on different parts of the table, it
would go about collecting them, stringing them on its lithe
body, and finally tying itself into a tight knot, so that the
rings could not be got off till it pleased to untie itself again.
Sometimes Lucie would twist the pretty bronze creature in
the great plait of hair she wore round her head, and once
she threatened to come down to a dinner-party of rather stiff
people thus decorated, and only gave up when my mother
entreated her, with tears in her eyes, not to do so. She used
to sit for hours together in a rocking-chair, reading Shake-
speare to us, and acting and declaiming her favourite parts
over and over again, till I knew them by heart myself, and
Beatrice and Portia became my personal friends. When my
sister Catherine was to be christened, Lucie thought she
would like to be christened at the same time, — her mother,
who was one of the Unitarian Taylors of Norwich, had of
course never thought of such a thing, but when (at my
father's suggestion) she wrote to ask her parents' consent, Mr.
Austin wrote back that she was welcome to do as she liked
in the matter ; and I well remember the curious scene of our
good old Rector in a highly nervous state, performing the
ceremony for the baby in arms and the magnificent lady of

i Early Days and Home Life 7

eighteen in the ugly old church of St. Clement's, Lord Mont-
eagle, Miss Shepherd, and my mother being the sponsors.

Soon after that Lucie was engaged to be married to Sir
Alexander Duff Gordon, a very handsome man, who used to
come down for weeks at a time, and draw wonderful devils in
our scrap-books, and walk about with Lucie wound up in one
plaid, both smoking cigarettes. They specially liked doing
this on the roof at Gawthorpe, to the horror of my mother,
who thought the neighbours might think it was ^ Janet, who
was quite innocent of everything but good works — schools,
lending-libraries, church-building were her delight, and she
generally sat in one of the great recesses of the long gallery
working out her plans like Dorothea in Middlemarch.

This room was extremely beautiful, stretching along the
whole front of the house, one side and the two ends covered
with stone mullioned windows, three of them deep bows or
recesses, like small rooms, the ceiling richly moulded with
cones and leaves, and long hanging pine-apples in the middle
of each pattern; grim old family portraits lined the whole
length of the room opposite the windows, and in the middle
was a curiously carved chimney piece, over which was in-
scribed, " Fear God, honour the King, seek peace and ensue it."
At one end was a huge iron-bound chest, the very original
(we children thought) of the Mistletoe-bough story, and of
which no one living could open the lid, it was so heavy. Near
it was a winding corkscrew stone staircase (it made one giddy
to go down it), and opening on it were wainscoted rooms and
secret closets, and the lady's boudoir, with a sliding panel,
from whence she could give her orders to the musicians in the
black oak gallery, or look down on the guests who were
feasting on the raised floor of the dining-hall below. That
was a grand room too, with a great arched chimney under
which one could sit in arm-chairs on each side of the burning
logs, and look up at the stars above (when not too smoky).
A secret chamber, with some chests of old plate, had once

8 Recollections of a Happy Life CHAP.

been found up that chimney, we were told, and the whole
house was full of mystery.

Outside, the house was all windows. I often counted
them, but could never find where they were inside; there
was a moat also, which kept it nice and damp, though the
course of the river had been changed and no longer ran
through it. The river Calder was itself spoilt by the num-
bers of factories which threw in their surplus dyes, and its
colour varied from orange to scarlet or purple. The noise,
smoke, and general griminess of every body and thing in that
country were most unattractive to me, and I was always glad
to move from it to clean dull old Norfolk, with its endless
turnip-fields and fir-plantations, pigs and partridges, and where
I had a most remarkable donkey to ride. That donkey was
a genius ! He could open every gate in the parish ; neither
latch nor chain could keep him out. We called him Goblin,
after the Fakenham Ghost, and he soon found me incon-
veniently heavy, and made riding unpleasant by taking me into
ditches and under low prickly hedges, when my only chance
of avoiding being torn in pieces was to lie flat on his back or
roll off; pulling at his mouth was as useless as pulling at the
church-tower, and I was not sorry when I was raised to the
dignity of riding a pony, on whose back I spent the chief part
of my days, following my father about from field to field,
tying up the pony while he was busy with his axe, and devour-
ing Cooper's novels under the trees he had planted, till I
fancied myself in the virgin forests of America.

Governesses hardly interfered with me in those days.
Walter Scott or Shakespeare gave me their versions of history,
and Robinson Crusoe and some other old books my ideas of
geography. The farm-house we lived in had been originally
the laundry of the Hall, and consisted of one large centre
room on the ground-floor, with sufficient bedrooms over it and
offices outside. This room had nine doors, three of them
outside doors, so it was very airy. It had a great open

Early Days and Home Life

fireplace in which we burnt huge logs of wood, and a steep
ladder-like stair more fit for a ship than a house. The
garden was full of old-fashioned flowers; it had tiny paths
and beds edged with box hedges, leading up to a quaint old
pigeon-house covered with ivy, and beyond that was the park
full of grand trees, and the church and village. Everything
was most unconventional; the Methodists and Wesleyans
had their own way, there having been no resident clergyman
within the memory of man, and no school of any sort ex-
cept theirs. The Eector lived at Whitehaven ; his son-in-law
was his curate, and kept a school somewhere else ; he paid a
hack parson, Mr. York, to come over every Sunday and " get
through " the service somehow. He used to stroll in with
his pipe in his mouth, within an hour or so of the proper
time, and after he had finished his task, in an almost empty
church, came in to dine with us, and have a game of chess
with my mother afterwards. He was not a bad man, but
uneducated, had been originally a ploughboy, and had won
the heart of a farmer's daughter, who first married him and
then took him to Cambridge to make a gentleman of him
by having him crammed sufficiently to get him ordained ;
they lived in a cottage three miles off", and he got a poor
livelihood by taking " hack duties " as they were called.

All our parish were Dissenters of different sorts, but
chiefly "ranters" or Primitive Methodists, a sect whose chief
preachers were women. When we came, however, a good
many usually came to church in order to have a real good
look at the Squire, who was always popular; and my
mother started a Sunday School "in order to bring
more people to church," a result of which I could never
quite see the benefit. She induced the leading Methodist
to bring all his school-children into a sort of lean-to, or side-
aisle, of his tumble-down old church (Dudleya's original
Library), and got one of the farmer's wives, with our gover-
ness and butler, to go and teach them, bribing the children

io Recollections of a Happy Life CHAP.

to stay through Mr. York's service and sermon by giving
them small tracts with pictures in them afterwards. I
remember well the first Sunday these children were seated
round the chancel outside the altar rails. The parish clerk
was rather astonished that my father objected to his seating
himself on the altar table during the sermon, with a long
pole in his hands to touch up the heads and backs of those
who went to sleep or did not behave with due solemnity.
My mother also started an evening class for young men, for
until then few of the villagers could either write or read.
They were most eager to improve themselves in this way;
far more so than they were after a properly organised school-
master, mistress, and house were established in the village.

Our life at Hastings was very different, and our comfort-
able house was generally full of guests. The Davies Gilberts
often came over from Eastbourne; the P.R.S. was a gentle
lovable old man; his clever wife a most inveterate talker,
full of philanthropic schemes for improving the condition of
the labouring classes, a subject not so much thought and
written about in the England of that day as it is now. She
used to carry models of ploughs, draining-tiles, and other
machines in her huge pockets, and the slightest gap in the
conversation brought them out, with all her arguments for
and against them. Another old lady used to come and stay
with us, a Mrs. Stock, who impressed me greatly, as she wore
stick-up collars, played splendidly on the piano, and had a
mania for phrenology. Whenever she came victims were
collected, with their back hair let down, to have their bumps
felt and registered, and the drawing-room looked like a hair-
dresser's shop ; under her influence my mother became quite
a believer.

My half-sister Janet had been a good deal away for
some time with her cousin, Mrs. Davenport, afterwards Lady
Hatherton, and one morning wrote the astonishing intelli-
gence that she was engaged to be married to Dr. Kay, the

i Early Days and Home Life 1 1

great educationalist. My mother had never seen nor heard
of him before, and was perfectly dumfoundered by the news.
Dr. Kay came down to see his future mother-in-law. He was
twelve years older than Janet and very bald, and as he took
my sister Catherine on his knee and petted her to hide his
nervousness, she made the deliberate and somewhat em-
barrassing remark, "Dr. Kay, why does your head come
through your hair ? " Terrible innocent !

Catherine was about four years old then, I twelve, and
Charley two years older. The wedding was all fun to us,
but I remember thinking that a medicine-chest was an uncom-
fortable kind of thing to be stuck between bride and bride-
groom in the yellow chariot as they rolled away.

The next great event was a journey to Scotland, where
my father had to look after the property of his ward, Sir
John Majoribanks. He and my brother joined us from Eton,
and we all went down by sea from London to Edinburgh,
coasting under the cliffs of Scarborough and Tantallon, then
close under the Bass Eock. From thence we went by coach
to Lees on the Tweed, where my mother's girlhood had been
passed. It is not an old place, but very lovely, with the clear
river running round the Lees or meadow on which the house
is built, and the Eildon Hills in the distance. The wild
cherries were white with blossom then, and reflected in the
water, through which one could see the salmon glittering as
they glided along deep below the surface. Men used to sit
on raised platforms on the bank, watching for the big ones to
come up from the sea, and gave notice to the fishermen to look
out for them. One story I heard there which impressed me
much. The factor had a large tom-cat, which used to sit and
watch him fishing, and got so excited when any big fish was
hooked that it would rush into the water and help to land it !
A curious instance of the love of sport overpowering its
cat-like dread of wetting its feet ! Poor puss at last fell
a victim to its own vices, and died from a fish-hook which

12 Recollections of a Happy Life CHAP.

stuck in its throat when devouring a stolen fish too
eagerly.

When we went south again, we caught the railway some-
where beyond York. There were only bits of railways in
those days, and we generally drove a long way to reach them,
and then used to sit in our own carriage, which was tied
on a truck, surrounded by all our luggage. My great delight
was to sit with my father on the rumble or coach-box, biting
my lips hard and shutting my eyes when we went through
the tunnels and bridges to keep myself from calling out
with fright, though I knew I was safe with my father's arm
round me.

Our journeys from Hastings to Norfolk every year were a
long week's work, and we were treated like old friends at all
the inns on the road. My father often drove himself, with me
on the box beside him. We also rode some hours each day.
I knew every big tree, pretty garden, or old farm-house, with
the wooden patterns let into the walls, and yews and box-
trees cut into cocks and hens, and I sadly missed them when
the days of "improvement and restoration" came. Ely
Cathedral and Cambridge also made up for the monotony of
the low fen-country, and we always stopped at the latter
place to visit old haunts and take a load of books from the
library — such books as we could not get elsewhere. Amongst
•others, Mrs. Hussey's two large volumes on British fungi
were my great delight one summer, and started me collecting
and painting all varieties I could find at Eougham, and for
about a year they were my chief hobby. One, I remember,
had a most horrible smell j1 it came up first like a large turkey's
egg, and in that state was inoffensive ; and as I was very anxious
to see the change, I put it under a tumbler in my bedroom
window one night, and the next morning was awakened by a
great crash. Behold the tumbler was broken into bits, and
the fungus standing up about five inches high with a honey-
combed cap, having hatched itself free of its restraining shell,
1 Phallus impudicus.

i Early Days and Home Life 13

and smelling most vilely. Good and bad smells are merely a
matter of taste, for it soon attracted crowds of a particular
kind of fly, which seemed thoroughly to enjoy themselves
on it.

At last some one told my mother that I was very un-
educated (which was perfectly true), so I was sent to school at
Norwich with Madame de Wahl, one of the three sisters of
Lady Eastlake who had committed the folly of marrying Russian
nobles while students at Heidelberg. She had lived to repent,
and escaped after much trouble, bringing home to England a
son and a daughter, whom she had to educate and bring up by,
her own earnings. She was very handsome ; it was impossible
not to love her, but school-life was hateful to me. The teach-
ing was such purely mechanical routine, and the girls with one
exception were uninteresting. The only bright days were
when my father used to ride over for the assizes or some other
business and take me with him ; one day he took me to see
Bishop Stanley in his old house by the Cathedral, and made
him promise to compel the next Vicar of Eougham to live
there, which he did. That bishop was a beautiful old man,
and more energetic than Norfolk sporting parsons cared for ;
they said he was undignified, and ought to sit still in his
carved stall at the Cathedral, instead of starting off on his
pony, no one knew where, on Sunday mornings, and pounc-
ing down on some wretched preacher and empty church, in
which he was not found out till his fine voice gave out the
blessing at the end.

At last the happy time came, and I left school. My
months there had not been many, but they were very long
ones to jne, and soon after it was decided to let Hastings
Lodge and to go abroad for three years.

In August 1847 we went to Heidelberg, where we settled •
for eight months in the two upper storeys of a large ugly
house outside the town gates, on the Mannheim road. We
were a large party — my father and mother, three English

14 Recollections of a Happy Life CHAP.

maids, a German cook, my sister, myself, and an old English
governess we used to call " Pietra Dura." Her name was Miss
Stone, and she knew the peerage by heart. My mother
believed in her ; we hated her. Music was then my mania,
my master's violoncello generally lived in our schoolroom, and
it was a real delight accompanying it both with voice and
piano. There were few English then in Heidelberg; our
friends were all German. The winter was cold and bright ;
continuous frost and sunshine, with neither fogs nor thaws.
The students in all their gay finery of caps and bands and
tassels drove jingling sledges up and down the High Street,
and skated on the river by torchlight, pushing gaily dressed
ladies in perambulators before them. They also gave excellent
concerts every week ; and the walks over the beautiful Berg-
strasse, covered with crisp frost or snow, were most enticing.
On Christmas Day we joined Professor von Mohl's family
party round the blazing tree ; and as we walked to his house
down the long High Street every window was illuminated
with the same trees, and family parties round them. No
shutters were closed on that night, so that those in the street
could also get some reflected warmth from the Christmas tree.
My father often took me expeditions, starting by rail, and
then plunging into the forests, over hills and valleys, where
we met pretty roe-deer, hares, or foxes, and gathered great
bunches of lilies of the valley ; all was apparently so calm and
peaceful, though at that moment great revolutions were hatch-
ing all over Europe. Shortly after, Louis Philippe fled from
France, which was soon in the hands of a Provisional Govern-
ment. Revolutionary ideas are infectious, and soon crossed
the Rhine to our students, who strutted about with cocks'
feathers added to their gay caps, and dressed their big dogs'
necks with the colours of united Germany, " Roth-schwartz-
gelb." The first great meeting to promote that end was held
in the court of the castle of Heidelberg on the 26th of March
1848. It was crowded with many thousands of people, who

i Early Days and Home Life 15

listened very quietly to hours of dull speechifying, a good deal
of pistol-shooting, and a little national music.

Before April was over we left Heidelberg, and steamed
up the Neckar to Heilbronn. From thence we drove in a
lumbering kind of omnibus, bag and baggage, through Ulm to
Augsburg and Munich, where we took a flat belonging to a
Bavarian grandee, over the Prussian Embassy, and next to the
English one, which pleased my mother, but my father called it
splendid discomfort ; and indeed, though the reception-rooms
were fine, the bedrooms and all usual comforts of life were as
deficient as they could well be. The whole of modern Munich
had the same mushroom character, the fancy of a poetical old
king, who just before our arrival had outfooled himself under
the reign of Lola Montez, and had been forced to abdicate :
the shop-windows were full of portraits of him tearing his hair
at the sudden departure of the " Despotinn " and his crown.

I soon fell a victim to typhoid fever ; but I had time before
it came to hear Don Giovanni for the first time, and to see the
Sleeping Faun and some other masterpieces in the wonderful
Glyptothek. When my fever abated I was taken to the Lake
of Starnberg — just the place to recover in — a still clear lake on
which one could be rowed without fatigue or hurry. Lovely
Alps in the far distance, quite too far to think of going to, no
particular expeditions to tempt one, a general prettiness and
freshness without anything the least grand or exciting. On
the banks of the lake was a small hunting-box of the young
king's, and as he had been made Lord High Admiral of the
new united German fleet, he had a gunboat or yacht launched
on the lake, and came down once to try it, but was very sea-
sick, and never came again ; such was the story.

My brother came out for his vacation, and did an amazing
amount of fishing, and then we all packed ourselves into a
huge three-bodied vehicle, and drove to Salzburg, taking about
three days on the road.

There was a great charm then about the old inn of the

1 6 Recollections of a Happy Life CHAP.

Schiff, with the splashing fountain, backed by the Cathedral,
in front, and Mozart's minuet perpetually chiming overhead
(sadly out of tune), as well as the sunset guns and military
bands, which seemed also to belong to it.

We did not stay long there, but settled ourselves in an old
manor-house with four turrets and about seventy windows,
two miles east of the town ; for all this my father paid £16
for the summer, so could afford also to hire a nice open
carriage with a pair of strong little horses, which took us to
Berchtesgaden, Konig See, Hallein, and other expeditions,
whenever we were in the mood. Nearly every afternoon we
had a thunderstorm j often they were more violent than our
old roof could stand. The water used to rush down the
winding stairs like a river from the upper storey. But the
sky effects at those times were superb, and from every side of
the house one could see magnificent and varied views.

My brother got as much fishing as he could manage, and
an Austrian gentleman one day took him to see some native
sport in the forest ; they tied an owl to a post with the sun in
its eyes, when it blinked so hard that all the birds of the air
came to look at it, then the sportsmen shot at them from a
sort of wigwam of branches they had made to hide in. They
brought home two hawks, a jay, and some other game more
curious than eatable.

Our next move was to Ischl, thence to Lake Gmunden, and
on by a horse-car to Linz, and down the Danube to Vienna,
meaning to pass the winter there. We began house-hunting
at once, and had nearly decided to take one on the ramparts ;
but the good landlord advised us to wait till the next day
before agreeing about it. He was an honest man, and knew,
what we strangers did not know, that disturbances were
already beginning in the city. My father and mother were in
the Cathedral when the mob broke in to fetch out the seats
and other movables to make a barricade outside ; the firing
began, the tocsin sounded its great muffled bell to call in the

i Early Days and Home Life 17

people from the suburbs, and armed men pointed their guns
at a door behind the pulpit. As no one came out of it, no one
was shot at, but when they began to bring in wounded from
outside, my father got my mother out by a back door, and
home through side streets. That night Latour, the Minister
of War, was hanged on a lamp-post and shot at by the students,
who burned down the arsenal, and dressed themselves up in
old breastplates and helmets, strutting about in them like
Bombastes Furioso. My father asked one who was pointing
a gun over the gate nearest to our hotel if we could leave the
town, and was told we should be shot down if we did. So he
went at once and secured two good porters with wheelbarrows,
on which our travelling luggage was placed. We all marched
out with it, and arrived safely at the railway station in the
Vorstadt ; from thence by slow degrees to Baden, proposing to
stay there till the row was over, and never dreaming that
poor Vienna would be shut up for a month. After we left,
indeed an hour after we passed through that gate, it was
barred and bolted.

Baden was crammed already with refugees, and not a
room to be had, so the next train took us on to Neustadt,
where my mother was so completely knocked up that she
declared she would sit up in the dining-room of the first inn
we tried for the night ; while the rest of our party wandered
forth again from inn to inn, under the bright moonlight,
hearing the watchman call ten, eleven, and twelve, when at
last we found comfortable beds and a kind host in a little inn
outside the town. The " Angel " was its name, and its nature, i
we thought, as we rested our weary feet and pitied my poor
father, who returned to assist my mother to " sit up " on a
hard bench among the smoking and beer-drinking Austrians
till morning in a dirty salon. He was not well, and few men
could have managed as he had done to get eight women and
all their luggage safely out of a fortified city in the hands of
revolutionists. The next morning's train took us to the foot
VOL. i C

1 8 Recollections of a Happy Life CHAP.

of the Semmering Pass, and the mouth of the first great
tunnel which pierced the Alps. After a three hours' hunt we
iound an omnibus and horses to carry the party over the pass.
I and my father walked, and enjoyed doing so. The scenery
was splendid ; an Italian regiment was before us, singing and
rejoicing as they got nearer their native land; the savage
grandeur of the mountains was softened by these distant
voices and melodies into something more kind and gentle ;
and the whole was flooded with a rosy sunset as we reached
Murzuschlag, where we were told no train would leave till
three the next morning. Of course the soldiers had taken
every lodging. We thought ourselves happy to be allowed to
camp in the third-class waiting-room for the night at the
station, and to make our supper off the few scraps of cold
plum-pudding and other national food we had left in our
baskets, which had been filled the week before at Ischl. One
of the railway-guards opened a drawer in a press and pulled
out some blankets, which he courteously offered my mother,
who as courteously refused, on which he took off his boots,
lighted his pipe, curled himself up amongst them in the
drawer, and smoked himself to sleep. We all did our best to
sleep also.

The train did not really start till six the next morning,
when we were far too weary to enjoy the scenery of the Mur
Valley; but the clean rooms, baths, and breakfast at the
" Black Elephant " at Gratz, were among the greatest luxuries
I ever met in my life. It was a genuine specimen of a
" gasthaus " of the old school, where the landlord treated his
guests like friends. All scraps and bones were made into soup
and given away to a crowd of poor people who collected in
the court every afternoon.

During the month the siege of Vienna lasted Gratz was
also in a panic ; but all the unquiet spirits went off to assist
the confusion of the capital, and the Styrians kept perfectly
good-humoured and quiet, though every one was most anxious

i Early Days and Home Life 19

for the future, and the banker even refused to cash circular
notes or cheques on Coutts's letter of credit, which was incon-
venient. Our heavy luggage had been sent from Ischl by an
"expeditor," and after sticking in Vienna for six weeks,
reached us safely at last, when we were already well settled in
a large new house near the Castle Hill, an isolated rock in the
midst of the wide rich valley of the Mur.

The cathedral was connected by a covered bridge with the
theatre ; the fiddlers and singers were common to both institu-
tions, and walked over it from one to the other, performing
equally well in both. We heard many of the best operas very
respectably done for two shillings a stall ; but one thing the
Gratzers insisted upon — they must have their suppers by ten
o'clock ; so that if the opera was a long one, it had to begin
earlier so as to be over at the required time, or they broke the
manager's windows the next morning. We often had to walk
in by daylight to suit this rule.

I had a delightful old singing -mistress who had been
famous in her youth, and had come out at Prague as the
"Queen of the Night" in the Zauberflote, and even then
could reach F above the lines with ease. With her I went
through all Mozart's operas and masses, singing and trans-
posing all the solos and duets ; and between singing and play-
ing I often passed eight hours a day at the piano. I learnt
many of Beethoven's sonatas by heart. My dear old mistress
used to take me also to sing amongst her daughters and pupils
in the organ-gallery of the cathedral, where I heard many
great works, including Bach's Passion music and Haydn's
Last Words. Of course Gratz was full of soldiers, mostly
raw recruits, Border Men and Croats, who were brought there
to be drilled before they were sent off to the wars then going
on in Hungary and Italy. These poor creatures came from
their homes in picturesque sheepskin coats, with the wool
inside and embroidery outside ; their well-shaped sandalled
feet were forced into regulation boots, while their bodies were

2O Recollections of a Happy Life CHAP.

squeezed into tight uniforms. They looked very miserable,
asking every one to change the paper florins (one of which had
to be divided between three of them), though no one had any
change to give them. Metal money was nowhere to be seen ;
the notes were usually torn into quarters, each quarter used
separately till it became an illegible shred. All living was
amazingly cheap. £7 a week covered the whole of our ex-
penses for nine persons, lessons and operas included. We
were the only English people in all Gratz.

About the end of April we turned northwards again. One
day of railroad took us to Vienna, but we did not care
to lodge a second time within the walls, the experiences
of the autumn having given us a horror of being " shut in."
We found the beautiful old city much knocked about by the
siege.

We went on by slow railway journeys to Brunn and Prague,
where we saw Kaiser Ferdinand at his devotions in the chapel
of the noble Hradschin Palace, lingered on the old bridge
among the statues, pulled some hairs out of the latest tail
of Wallenstein's stuffed horse, and stared at the gorgeous
Bohemian glass in the. shop windows — it was just then the
most popular of chimney ornaments ; after a while the Vene-
tian reproductions of Salviati made it look vulgar, then the
still older potteries of Japan became the fashion, and what
next, I wonder !

Our next move was eventful ; for after floating peacefully
down the beautiful Elbe, through the picturesque rocks and
forests of Saxon Switzerland, we reached Dresden, and the very
day after our arrival the revolution began. The king fled up
to his fortress on the Konigstein, taking all his most valuable
treasures from the "Green Vaults" with him, and sending for
soldiers from Prussia to come and reduce his beloved subjects
and their city into order, by fair means or foul ; while his pet
Wagner, the Composer of the Future, harangued and led the
mob against them. Barricades were raised in every street,

i Early Days and Home Life 21

and all traffic over the bridge leading from our side of the
river was stopped by soldiers. My father bribed a boatman to
take him across to see what was going on, and thought the
Saxons were not so much in earnest over their civil war as
the Viennese had been ; but when the Prussians arrived and
regularly besieged the place, then the fight began only too
seriously, and the noise of cannon and guns went on inces-
santly for some days. The Prussian commander lodged in our
house, and we saw from its windows the poor Zwinger and
other fine buildings in flames. Most of the ambassadors also
crossed the noble river to seek safety with us. But our own
representative, Mr. Forbes, sent his sister only, and stayed,
like a brave man, at his post, with the English flag flying over
his house, ready to shelter any of his country people who
wished to claim its protection.

It was a fearful week of anxiety, but at last the soldiers
gained the day; the insurgents submitted unconditionally, and
we saw the Prussians march over the bridge with green
branches on their helmets and bayonets, amid much cheering
and music. Of the poor wounded and killed we also saw
enough to give a vivid horror of war to our minds ever after ;
but as far as we could judge, the good-humour and discipline
of the Prussians on that occasion were very remarkable. They
were soon billeted and quartered in every house in the city,
and many were the stories told of the behaviour of the men,
especially of the Alexander Guards, who were all of noble
birth and education, though privates in rank, and who aston-
ished their hostesses by playing the piano and other accom-
plishments (darning their socks also between whiles).

We were not sorry to escape and get into a clean roomy
apartment the other side of the city. It was hot at Dresden
in summer, but I worked hard and enjoyed three months there
exceedingly. Oeccarelli, the chief singer of the king's chapel,
found out my voice was contralto instead of soprano, so I
tried no more high tunes. I learnt with him to know the

22 Recollections of a Happy Life , CHAP.

grand old sacred music of Italy — Marcello, Pergolesi, Stradella,
as well as Haydn, Hasse, and Bach.

We had many delightful days there, and of course learnt
to know the famous pictures by heart — all that is too well
known to need description. But I think what made the most
impression on my memory were the visits we used to pay to
old Moritz Retsch and his wife. They lived five miles from
Dresden, quite in the country, in a small cottage amongst the
vines ; under those very vines the old artist is said to have
found a baby asleep when he himself was a boy of twelve
years old, and to have vowed that that baby should become
his wife when she grew up. He superintended her education,
and never changed his mind. She was an only child, and
succeeded to her father's home, vines, and farm, and when we
knew her was still a very beautiful old lady. Eetsch had won
many honours by his genius for illustration, but could never
be tempted away from his quiet country home. He had never
even been to Berlin, and only went into Dresden when abso-
lutely obliged by his professorial duties ; but although he had
seen nothing of the world, his variety of fancy knew no bounds,
and he worked it from morning till night. His original draw-
ings were done with pencil, shaded with the greatest fineness,
and were very unlike the bold outlines which have been
engraved, and by which his name has become known to
foreigners. He used to get five or ten guineas for one of
these small pencil drawings — a great price in Germany at that
time. He was exceedingly simple and quaint in his manner
and talk, delighted in showing his children (as he called his
drawings), and telling marvellous stories about them, while his
wife brought out her famous coffee and cakes. In her room I
saw for the first time a sofa with real growing ivy trained over
it as a canopy. We also knew the painters Dahl and Vogel-
stein. The latter gave my mother a beautiful study for his
large painting of a martyr taking leave of her child through
the prison bars, as he said the face resembled hers.

i Early Days and Home Life 23

About the end of August we moved on by Berlin to Stettin
on the Oder, and down that river in a barge towed by a
steamer to Swinemunde. We went on the same day by a
small steamer, and in about six .hours landed in the Isle of
Eiigen, and soon settled ourselves in a nice little house at
Putbus. The name of that place had become known to English
people chiefly through its Prince having been the representa-
tive of Prussia at the coronation of our Queen, when he came
over in great state to attend it. He was said to be one of
the richest nobles of Germany, possessing a great part of
Pomerania, which is famous for its corn (even more than for
its " plum-pudding " dogs). The Prince and Princess lived in
a large palace at Putbus, and were most kind and hospitable
to all strangers, allowing every one to ramble as they liked
through their lovely gardens and park. Of course the newly
arrived English family were asked at once to dine at the Palace
at four o'clock.

The chalk heights in Riigen are all sprinkled over with
granite boulders, and Hiinengraber are scattered in every
direction, some of them very large. Fine beech-trees begin
also with the chalk ; though so much exposed to the north
winds, the trees actually hang over the very edge of the
Stubenkammer precipice, 400 feet above the sea. A small
"gasthaus" had been built there, and about a quarter of a
mile behind it was the temple of the goddess Hertha, resem-
bling an enormous raised -pie of granite boulders, covered
with earth, bedded in the thickest wood, and fringed over its
very sides with beech-trees of large growth. Its walls were
at least 50 feet high, their scarp still denned and steep ; the
edge, on which an easy path is traced, being just broad enough
to hold it. This seemed most wonderful, as their date was
beyond tradition. On one side the walls opened upon a dismal
lake covering five or ten acres, most funereal-looking even in
the brightest sunshine. Great beeches shaded it, and gigantic
rushes fenced in the whole of its circular edge. Its waters

24 Recollections of a Happy Life CHAP,

were warm, and its depth was said to be unfathomable ; it had
no apparent outlet or inlet. Higher up to the west was one
large barrow or Hiinengrab, among many others, from which
the view was magnificent. The sun could be watched as it
set gloriously in the sea towards Holstein, and one could sit
and wonder at the hundreds of Hiinengraber, and the still more

•». mysterious granite blocks of which they were built. How
were they brought to those high chalk cliffs, with which they
had no possible geological connection 1 The glacier theories
alone could explain it, am} to a woman's mind the problem did
not seem so difficult in this cold Baltic region as it did in the
tropics, where I again encountered it after many years. A

""fine chalybeate spring scenting the air with sulphur added its
odours to the wonders of the Stubenkammer, bursting out of
the chalk cliff half-way down the steep path to its foot.
Beech-trees followed it down, and grew close to the edge of the

^ sea, with its hard bed of granite and flint pebbles.

The bathing at Putbus was delicious. Half an hour's drive
brought one to a pretty wood, where a circular clearing had
been made for the carriages and their drivers to wait in. Five
minutes more took one on foot through the thick screen of
bushes to a lovely sandy cove, with dressing- huts built on
piles round it, and steps descending at different depths to suit
people's ages and fancies. The water was always calm and
clear as crystal, but only half salt; there was never more than a
foot or two of tidal difference in the water's edge. Beautiful
jelly-fish floated about, set with stars of all the purest colours,
and could be easily caught in the hand, but melted away on
dry land. Lovely sea-weed tempted one to collect, but shrank
to a formless nothing when captured. There never was a
more enjoyable bathing-place, and the old Princess herself
used it in the same simple manner we did, except that her
"shakebus" (no better than ours) was drawn by six fine
horses. There was another small bay set aside for the men
bathers. The shores of Eiigen are never straight in any

i Early Days and Home Life 25

direction for half a mile ; from every quarter little bays and
inlets run up to the centre of the island, and the view from its
capital, Bergen (which with its old Runic castle Eugard forms
the very heart of it), was most remarkable, — one saw far more
sea than land, while the abundance of fine old trees and high
cultivation reminded one of England.

The park at Putbus was full of deer, so tame that they
would take bread from our hands. The Prince's Kapelmeister
introduced me for the first time to the music of Handel — such
a great event in my life that I found myself wondering the
other day when looking over my father's journals why he did
not mention it, till I came to my senses, and remembered that
"all music" (to him) was "a horrid noise, which must be
submitted to for the sake of others who like it." Herr Miiller
used to take me to the organ-gallery of the Palace Chapel, and
accompany all the noble old songs from the oratorios on the
organ, transposing those that were out of my reach in their
original keys, as Madame Sehr had done, thus giving me the
delight of learning their glorious melodies, which once learnt
can never be forgotten. They have filled many a wakeful
night and weary day of voyage with pleasant memory. None
who really love music can be dull, and it can be thus enjoyed
without disturbing others by " a horrid noise." I wish practis-
ing could be done equally silently, and fear I must have been
a perfect nuisance to all my neighbours in those days.

We stayed till all the other guests were gone, and the little
steamer had ceased to run ; so the one real carriage at Riigen
was placed at my mother's disposal, while the rest of the
party and our twenty packages were packed into carts. We
drove over the sands to the ferry, and crossed to the old
fortified island of Stralsund, with its many towers. The pave-
ments were barely above the level of the sea and moat.

Hagenow was the end of our drive, whence the railway
took us to Hamburg in a few hours, where we rested and
looked at the busy streets and muddy canals and the reflected

26 Recollections of a Happy Life CHAP.

gas-lights in the great Alster Dam from our windows at night.
Started again by rail to the semi-English Hanover, then full of
royal red liveries and soldiers, and by Cologne to Brussels,
where we again settled in a lodging for six months, and my
practising became more incessant than ever under Herr
Kufferath, a pupil of Mendelssohn, to the study of whose
works I devoted myself that winter.

Two people I saw and heard at Brussels whom I cannot
forget, Madame Sontag and Mrs. Norton. The latter I found
one day talking to my mother in our sitting-room, and without
knowing anything about her, felt quite awed by her grand
beauty and deep bell -toned voice. She was a real queen.
Madame Sontag I only heard at a concert, but having once
heard I persuaded my father to take me to each of her per-
formances. Her singing had a manner and perfection peculiar
to herself ; and her history, as we heard it, gave me an extra
interest in her. She had been for many years the wife of
Count Rossi, the Sardinian Minister at Berlin, who was then
pauperised by the Revolution. She had taken up her old
profession to support him and her children. Report also told
how Jenny Lind had retired from the opera in England to
make way for the older woman, who had shown her much
kindness when unknown and in want of friends — a story I
liked to believe true, whether it were so or not. Another
wonderful woman I saw in Paris a few weeks afterwards,
whose image does not give me pleasure but a shudder
to think of, I mean Rachel as I saw her in Phedre. It was
fearful, and the acting must have been horribly real to engrave
itself so vividly on my memory. I can hear the tremulous
thrill of her voice now.

In London that year I had some lessons in flower-painting
from a Dutch lady, Miss van Fowinkel, from whom I got the
few ideas I possess of arrangement of colour and of grouping,
and then we recommenced the happy old life at Rougham, I
passing hours and hours of every day on horseback, painting

i Early Days and Home Life 27

and singing with little fear of interruption. Our neighbours
were kind, but we were not what is called a sociable family,
and the few balls or parties were to me a penance. I hated
the dressing up and stiffness of them, and the perpetual talk
of turnips, partridges, or coursing, of my partners. The
farmers tried to look like squires, the squires like game-
keepers; the women had the same ideas (though of course
there were exceptions).

The next season I saw the opening of the first great
Exhibition (1851), with the Chinaman admiring the real
live Duke of Wellington, who thought the whole thing very
dangerous. I also went to a drawing-room and began study-
ing singing again under Miss Dolby. I never had any other
mistress, but learnt to admire her more and more, till both
our days for singing were over. I loved her for herself, as
well as for her voice, and I believe she liked my singing, as
she used to make me take the contralto solos in the concerts
she gave her pupils in concerted music, while the other solos
were sung by professionals ; but I grieve to say I never did
well on those occasions, having a most provoking habit of
nervousness ; when told to stand up and show off, the room
seemed to go round and round, and I could not keep myself
from shaking all over.

Bartholomew also gave me a few lessons in water-colour
flo wer- painting : the only master I longed for would not
teach, i.e. old William Hunt, whose work will live for ever, as
it is absolutely true to nature. We used to see a good deal of
him at Hastings, where he generally passed his winters, living
in a small house almost on the beach under the East Cliff,
where he made most delicious little pencil-sketches of boats
and fishermen. I can see him now, looking up with his funny
great smiling head, and long gray hair, above the poor dwarfish
figure, and his pretty wife, with her dainty little openwork
stockings and shoes, trying to drag him off for a proper walk
on the parade with her daughter and niece, where he looked

28 Recollections of a Happy Life CHAP.

entirely out of character. I remember " That Boy," too, whom
Hunt taught to be anything he chose as model, blowing the
hot pudding, fighting the wasp, or taking the physic; the
apple-blossoms and birds'-nests, with their exquisite mosses
and ivy-leaved backgrounds, were found in the hedges and
gardens about Hastings. Prout also lived in a Hastings lodg-
ing in George Street. He was very delicate, and used to
draw even in his bed. These two, as well as other artists, used
to spend much of their time in the house of Mr. Maw, a man
of great taste, who, when he had retired from business, settled
in a house on the West Hill, where he made an exquisite collec-
tion of Turner's water-colours. He also fitted up a studio
with rare old oak, which became the background to many
famous historical pictures. His daughter was my great friend
as a child, and his son has since made himself famous by his
beautiful book on crocuses. But the neighbour in whom we
delighted most was the Kev. Julian Young, son of the actor
Charles Young, who had insisted on his going into the Church
when his natural talent and inclination were for the profession
of his father. He could not tell the smallest tale without
acting, bringing his face unconsciously into the likeness of the
person he was speaking of. His voice was as elastic as his
face, and his singing as good as his acting. He was in our
house quite three times a week, it being a convenient halt
between his home at Fairlight and the town. The days
seemed brighter when he came. He did his duties as a clergy-
man most conscientiously ; but his congregation did not appre-
ciate him, and they were much shocked one Sunday when he
kept them all out on the edge of the cliff to see the Baltic
Fleet pass up the Channel till long after the usual time for
the service to begin, and then talked of it in his sermon, and
of the men from the Signal Station on those cliffs who were
in that fleet, and prayed that they might return safely
again : it was considered a most unorthodox and undignified
proceeding.

i Early Days and Home Life 29

Our garden was much of a weedery in those days at
Hastings, but in spite of neglect many tender shrubs grew
high in the mild climate and sheltered situation between two
hills ; myrtle, sweet bay, and fig-trees flourished there. The
latter tree tempted another artist, Edward Lear, the author of
the Books of Nonsense, to settle himself as a lodger in the
cottage of our gardener close by, and finish there his great
pictures of the Quarries of Syracuse and ThermopylaB, with
our fig-tree in the foreground of the former, a group of ravens
in the latter, all of them painted from one old specimen with a
broken leg, which was fastened to an apple-tree opposite his
windows. He also painted a great view from Windsor for
Lord Derby, with some Southdown sheep in the foreground,
which my father bought on purpose for him, and kept in the
field within sight of his room — a kindness he never forgot, and
repaid in friendship to his children and grandchildren. He
was most good-natured in letting us watch him at work, and
used to wander into our sitting-room through the windows
at dusk when his work was over, sit down to the piano, and
sing Tennyson's songs for hours, composing as he went on,
and picking out the accompaniments by ear, putting the
greatest expression and passion into the most sentimental
words. He often set me laughing ; then he would say I was
not worthy of them, and would continue the intense pathos of
expression and gravity of face, while he substituted Hey
Diddle Diddle, the Cat and the Fiddle, or some other non-
sensical words to the same air. I never was able to appreciate
modern poetry, and still think it is sense worrited, and often
worrit without the sense.

In May 1854 my father became again M.P. for Hast-
ings, being elected without opposition on the death of Mr.
Brisco.

On the 17th of January 1855 my mother died. Her end
had come gradually ; for many weeks we felt it was coming.
She did not suffer, but enjoyed nothing, and her life was a

30 Recollections of a Happy Life CHAP.

dreary one. She made me promise never to leave my father,
and did not like any one to move her but him ; he was always
gentle and ready to help her, and missed her much when she
was gone, writing in his diary in his own* quaint way : "The
leader is cut off from the main trunk of our home, no branches,
no summer shoots can take its place, and I feel myself just an
old pollard-tree."

My father let Hastings Lodge, and took a flat in Victoria
Street. Soon it became more like home than any other to me,
and was a great rest after the big house at Hastings with its
perpetual visitors ; for my father tried to be civil to everybody,
and always knew the principal people who wintered there.
In our flat we had few servants, and needed no bells, as they
were all within call. None but real friends came to see us,
as eighty-seven steps were a trial to any friendship, and kept
the mere acquaintances away. We had one friend, an old
retriever dog, who did not mind them at all. He was called
Jill (his brother Jack having tumbled down and broken his
crown when young). He and I used to accompany my father
to Westminster when he went in the morning to his committee-
work, the dog scampering all over St. James's Park like a
wild thing till we reached the Abbey, when he was told to go
home with me. He would put his tail between his legs, his
nose in my hand, and pace solemnly down Victoria Street by
my side, never even looking at a dog till he had seen me
inside the door ; then he would give a sharp bark of joy, and
gallop back to wait for his master in Westminster Hall, and
would stay starving there till the small hours of the morning.
Jill knew all my father's haunts and ways, and if he missed
him anywhere would go and look for him at the Athenaeum
about tea-time, where he was often to be seen sitting like a
sphinx on the steps, much patted by the bishops and other
great people. All the House of Commons policemen knew
him, and used to lead him home when the House was counted
out — a mode of proceeding Jill could never understand. His

i Early Days and Home Life 31

end was sad ; he was run over by a cab, and we mourned
a real friend.

We rode often to the Chiswick Gardens and got speci-
men flowers to paint ; were also often at Kew, and once when
there Sir William Hooker gave me a hanging bunch of the
Amherstia nobilis, one of the grandest flowers in existence.
It was the first that had bloomed in England, and made me
long more and more to see the tropics. We often talked of
going, if ever my father had a holiday long enough.

London was full of delights for me, though I never went
through much of the treadmill routine called " Society " ; when
my father had a holiday he liked to spend it at home. At
Rougham the usual round of farming, shooting, and petty
country traffic went on, then back to Hastings with its heavier
traffic of big dinners and pleasant music parties, half amateur,
half professional, of which Baron de Tessier, a naturalised
French refugee, was the centre, his zeal being occasionally
greater than his skill. One musical evening at Hastings
Lodge about this period is memorable in my mind. The " Toy
Symphony " of Romberg was performed with a distinguished
cast, Mr. H. Brabazon (an accomplished amateur) at the piano,
while Prosper Sainton and Carl Deichmann took the two
violins, and Madame Sainton Dolby played the big drum with
a will.

Agnes Zimmermann, too, was often there, from the time
when we first knew her — a pale over-thoughtful child of eight,
to whom little of childish pleasures ever came. She used to
play Beethoven's sonatas through by heart, perched on a high
music-stool, till she grew to be the thorough musician she is
now. She has been one of my life-long friends.

But the society we enjoyed most was a set of rare old
friends who came to us every winter, and talked together
delightfully. My father was no great talker himself, but
enjoyed listening to others, when his deafness allowed him —
that was his great trouble ; but some voices he always heard,

32 Recollections of a Happy Life CHAP.

mine especially, however low I spoke. There is no greater
mistake than to shout to a deaf person. I am quite deaf in
one ear myself, but the nerves of the other are most tender,
and some harsh voices give me positive pain.

Next season we went another way down to Norfolk by
Harrogate, where an Indian uncle was drinking the waters.
How that place smelt of sulphur ! Thence to Kendal and
the Lakes, all a land of delight to us ; and after going the
usual tourist round, we settled for a week with our old
friends, the Francis Galtons, near Grasmere, in a farm-house
on the hillside, to rest and talk in quiet without "moving on."
After a month of mountain air we returned to the flats of
Norfolk, where soon after my brother engaged himself to the
eldest daughter of our neighbour, the Hon. and Kev. Thomas
Keppel, Kector of North Creake, and they were married on
the 16th of March 1859.

After that a stormy Parliamentary session succeeded ; my
father forming one of a small party of Liberals who called
themselves then the St. Stephen's Club.

We let the house at Hastings for that summer (and the
two next also) to Count Poutiatine, the famous Russian
Admiral, who ran the blockade of the White Sea so cleverly
during the war. He had an English wife and a most polyglot
family. The children talked five languages, besides studying
all other accomplishments. They had an English tutor, a
German governess, a French bonne, an Italian valet; they
studied Latin, Greek, and Hebrew, besides their own difficult
Russian tongue. Our old housemaid stayed on with them,
and declared it to be as good as being in the tower of Babel
to live at Hastings with these people. When the House was
up we three wandered off abroad, starting by way of Jersey
for the Pyrenees and Spain, returning in an English ship from
Cadiz to the Thames on the 3d of January 1860.

After my brother married, my father gave up the old house
at Rougham to him, and each summer, when the Parlia-

Early Days and Home Life

mentary session was over, we three, with our three old
portmanteaux (their collective weight nicely calculated under
the 160 Ibs. allowed on Continental railways), used to start
forth on some pleasant autumn journey. My father loved
the deep romantic valleys round the southern slopes of Mont
Blanc and Monte Rosa, and there summer after summer we
found ourselves walking over easy passes, with just enough
of necessaries to be easily carried on an Alpine porter's back,
staying a while at Macugnaga, Gressonay, Courmayeur, or
Varallo, till we joined the welcome portmanteaux again at
some point on the Italian Lakes. Baveno was the place he
liked best ; it had no huge hotel in those days, but a pretty
primitive old inn, painted pink, on the Lake shore, with a
kindly landlord who made old friends welcome.

In the autumn of 1861 we made a longer journey to
Trieste, Pola, Fiume, by the Hungarian Lake of Balaton,
where grew such grapes as I have never seen elsewheie in
Europe, to Pesth and Debreczin. Here we were lucky enough
to see the wild humours of a great Hungarian fair, with
horse-races, and a superb gipsy band. Then down the
Danube and across the Black Sea to Constantinople, Smyrna,
Athens, and home by sea to Marseilles.

The winter of 1863-64 was a merry one. We had a
succession of nice people staying with us, whom our young
cousins in the Croft used to describe with youthful flippancy
as " Old Couples without Encumbrances." Sir Edward and
Lady Sabine (he was President then of the Royal Society,
and she no less wise than he, though as unassuming as a
gentle child), the Benthams, F. Galtons, Erskine Mays, Knoxes,
and Lady Hawes, with a queer household of polyglot servants.

The great event of the winter was a fancy ball given at
Beauport by the Tom Brasseys, most hospitable of youthful
hosts. Old Mr. Brassey, the father, was a grand specimen of
an Englishman, with all the instincts of a real gentleman,
generous, honest, and most simple in all his ways, though he

VOL. I D

34 Recollections of a Happy Life CHAP.

left more than three millions among his three sons. He
delighted in telling how he had saved up his first hundred
pounds, and then been helped on by Robert Stephenson.
Long before we met him we had heard his praises sung at
Smyrna, for the way he took care of his men and their families
while making the railway through those feverish plains,
keeping, at the same time, such discipline among the navvies
employed, that the English name was not lowered as in other
remote countries by tales of drunkenness and dishonesty.

In the summer of '64 we went to Pfeffers, crossed the
Julier Pass to Samaden and Pontresina, and settled ourselves
in that paradise of Alpine climbers, the Old Crown Inn. In
those primitive days it was nearly all built of wood (as was
also the old Chalet Inn at Miirren), and as the majority of
its frequenters delighted in getting up in the very smallest
hours of the morning, putting on heavily-nailed boots, and
shouting at one another from room to room, it could not be
called quiet quarters. A merry party of young people were
collected there, including Mrs. C. and all the Zigzaggers,
whose adventures our friend Miss Tuckett illustrated so
capitally, also John Addington Symonds, whom we had met
at Miirren the previous summer, and Professor Tyndall. The
latter invited my father to join him in a search-party to look
for his watch, which had been swept out of his pocket during
a wild ride on an avalanche. They found the watch (a gold
one) after many hours, on the glacier, safe under a stone,
which had sheltered it from the sun's rays. It had quietly
run itself down, and when wound up went on as merrily as
usual : so did our brave old father on that adventurous walk.

Mrs. Gaskell was also at Pontresina at that time, and had
taken a quiet room outside the village to work in peacefully.
There she finished a great part of her last story, Wives and
Daughters. She was very beautiful and gentle, with a sweet-
toned voice, and a particularly well-formed hand.

1864. — On the 10th of November my sister was married to

i Early Days and Home Life 35

John Addington Symonds, in St. Clement's Church, Hastings,
and narrowly escaped being given away by her masterful
great-aunt, Lady Waldegrave, instead of her father. That
old lady had for many years ruled over our family at Hastings
with no gentle sway, for which its younger members did not
love her, but she was the last of a generation now long passed
away, and her stories of the good old smuggling days and the
primitive ways and dissipations of the Hastings fashionables
of her youth would have been worth chronicling.

1865. — In July came a general election, when my father
lost his seat by only nine votes. As it is an ill wind that
blows nobody good, we were able to utilise this period of
unwished-for leisure, and carry out a long-cherished plan of a
journey to the East. He and I started from Trieste by the
Austrian Lloyd boat, which coasts the Adriatic by Spalatro,
Ragusa, and Cattaro, spending eleven unwilling days in
quarantine in the harbour at Corfu : then going by Beyrout
to Damascus.

We spent the winter on a Nile boat, going as far as
Assouan ; the spring of the following year in Syria, returning
to England early in the summer of 1866 by Carinthia and
Tyrol.

We did not stay much in London that next season, 1867,
but devoted ourselves to the Hastings garden. My father
built three glass-houses : one for orchids, another for temperate
plants, and another quite cool for vines and cuttings. We
lived in those houses all the spring, my father smoking and
reading in the temperate regions, where we had a table and
chairs, while I washed and doctored all the sick plants, and
potted off the young seedlings. It was delightful work, and
though the constant change from damp tropical heat to cold
English east winds brought on a most irritable rash on my
face and hands, I thought the pleasure of seeing the growing
wonders compensated amply for the pain. We established
water-pipes all through the garden, so that we could give

36 Recollections of a Happy Life CHAP.

the plants any quantity of irrigation, and we had all sorts
of shady nooks under the great bay -trees, every variety of
aspect and ground, and could grow most things well. We
used to work like slaves, and were often working till it
became too dark to see our flowers any longer, having only
a young Wiltshire gardener of eighteen to help us, with a
Eougham boy under him, and Garibaldi the poodle to look
on. That dog was supremely wise ; as a puppy he had been
the hero of a story which Miss Cobbe has rendered classical.
We had gene to a play in London. Baldi was left in the
dining-room, with the supper ready laid on the table. He
took a pigeon out of the pie and ate it, then looked about till
he found the sponge my father used to wipe his pens on, then
put it in the pie in the place of the pigeon, where our old
servant Elizabeth found it. He was very fond of being
washed, and used to collect all the things he considered neces-
sary for the ceremony as soon as he saw his bath put out, and
bringing them to it, sit by its side till told to get in : towels,
sponges, old boots, gloves— all sorts of things he always
brought together. His devotion to his master was most
touching, and he seemed to understand if he was ill.

Another pet we had then, who was equally devoted to him
alone, a green paroquet with a beautiful rosy ring round its
neck. I saw a Times advertisement one day from an old
soldier who had got a place as railway guard, and wanted
to find a home for his parrot, not having time to look after
it, so I answered it, and bought it. It called itself Jewy, and
as it had always been in a regiment among men it hated the
sight of a woman, and always flew at me, but attached itself
aTonce to its master. It would fly to him whenever he came
in, sit on his shoulder, kiss him, feed him, and say all it
could say over and over again. If he went to sleep, it would
walk gently over him, saying " Hush ! What's the matter ? "
to any one who moved. We had a third pet and gem of all
that year at Hastings — my sister's little girl Janet, the most

i Early Days and Home Life 37

fairy -like little creature, with grave thinking eyes which
brightened up with extraordinary intelligence when one
talked or sang to her. I can never forget the pretty
pictures she made, poking her way through the long uncut
grass stalks, great ox-eyed daisies, red sorrel and clover, and
the odd little flower-arrangements she used to make, pulling
off the heads and buds, with no stalks, mixing them up with
feathers, pebbles, and shells. She wanted no expensive toys ;
the garden was her bazaar, and all nature her delight.1

After this came two more short journeys to the Italian
Tyrol and to Mentone and the South of France. Then in
November 1868 George Waldegrave's resignation brought on
again the worries and work of a contested election. My father
and Mr. Brassey came in with a large majority, but a petition
to unseat them was at once lodged by the opposite party.

It was most galling to my poor old father, who had been
all his life fighting against bribery. It is best to write no
more on the subject, as it would only bore readers and injure
my own temper. The very implication of corrupt practices
broke his heart, though he knew his name was only dragged
in from his connection with Mr. Brassey, who had the reputa-
tion of great wealth, but who always behaved most thoughtfully
towards him in the whole matter.

It was a wretched year at Hastings, though all our kind
old friends came down to cheer us with their company — the
George Normans, Sabines, Benthams, etc. Then my father
resumed his old work in Parliament, but his spirit was broken
and his health declining. However, the suspense came to an
end at last, and after five days' trial Mr. Justice Blackburn
dismissed the petition with costs on the 17th of April 1869,
our excellent old tenant at Rougham, Mr. Kinger, paying in
his half-year's rent some months beforehand, as he said he
" feared the Squire must have had some expense about the
petition.

1869. — On the 4th of August we started for Gastein by way
1 Janet H. Symonds died at Davos, April 1887.

38 Recollections of a Happy Life CHAP, i

of Frankfort. That journey is so full of painful remembrances
that I shall make the note of it as short as possible. After a
few days' rest at Salzburg we posted on to Gastein, and got
our old rooms at the Hirsch. He grew so strong in a fortnight
that he planned walking over the hills to Heiligenblut — eighteen
hours ! We went up an Alp 3000 feet above Gastein to try
our powers. He came back so well that he went up another
hill the next day, leaving me to rest at home, but it was too
much ; his old disease returned. We hastened down to Salz-
burg, where the doctor advised us to get home. At Munich
he arrived in the greatest state of suffering. The people at
the inn were kind, and persuaded me to go for Dr. Kanke.
At last I got him safe home. He was so glad to be there, and
to see Catherine and his friends again, that they would not
believe how ill he was. Even his old friend and doctor, Mr.
Ticehurst, did not discover it at first. After a last three days
of exhaustion and sleep he ceased to live on the 29th of
October. The last words in his mouth were, " Come and give
me a kiss, Pop, I am only going to sleep." He never woke
again, and left me indeed alone. I wished to be so ; I could
not bear to talk of him or of anything else, and resolved to
keep out of the way of all friends and relations till I had
schooled myself into that cheerfulness which makes life
pleasant to those around us. I left the house at Hastings for
ever, and my affairs in the hands of our kind old friend Mr.
Hunt of Lewes.

She took with her owr old servant Elizabeth, and started for
Mentone, then after a while by slow journeys along the Riviera to
Sicily, where the whole of the following spring was spent and many
sketches made. In the summer of 1870 she returned to take up life
done in the flat in Victoria Street, which was henceforth to be her
home.

CHAPTER II

CANADA AND UNITED STATES

1871

I HAD long had the dream of going to some tropical country
to paint its peculiar vegetation on the spot in natural abundant
luxuriance; so when my friend Mrs. S. asked me to come
and spend the summer with her in the United States, I
thought this might easily be made into a first step for carrying
out my plan, as average people in England have but a very
confused idea of the difference between North and South
America. I asked Charles Kingsley and others to give me
letters to Brazil and the West Indies, his book At Last having
added fuel to the burning of my rage for seeing the Tropics.

1871.— On the 12th of July I joined my old friend Mrs. S.
at Liverpool, the next day we packed ourselves into a comfort-
able cabin on board the Cunard steamer Malta, and moved
away westward. It was rough, and a young French officer
thought he was dying, sent for Mrs. S., and asked her to take
his last will and testament to his betrothed at Boston. He
wished her also to ask the captain to stop and let him out, and
he would go on by the next ship. He also wanted her to make
the steward bring him some pudding he called " by and by,"
which the latter was always promising .and never brought.
My friend promised to do all he wished, and that consoled
him, and he didn't die.

The very sight of Mrs. S. did any one good ; her head was
covered with little curls of pure silver, her complexion was very

4O Recollections of a Happy Life CHAP.

fair, and she wore a purple knitted cobweb pinned on the back
of her head, and diamond earrings. She was full of jokes and
continual fits of laughter, her quaint American accent making
her talk all the more amusing. She had a very pretty, but
perfectly useless little French maid, and an enormous quantity
of luggage, which was the plague of the little maid's life, for
she could never find anything that was wanted, and used to
wring her hands and exclaim "quel horreur!" at everything her
mistress required. The people on board were a very uninterest-
ing set of Yankees first class, and Irish second. The latter
made a terrible noise all night, and the ship's officers did not
keep any sort of order amongst them. The last night both
ends of the ship were in such a state of uproariousness that we
shut both our door and windows to keep out the row, and
were nearly stifled in consequence.

After the usual scares of fog and icebergs we arrived safely
in Boston harbour, and F. S. was soon on board, coming out
with the pilot to meet us, and accompany us in through its
many islands, crowded with all kinds of sailing and steaming
vessels and many pleasure -yachts. He employed his leisure
moments in cramming me with stories about the inhabitants,
aborigines, etc. etc., till wo were sore with laughing. Yankee
stories cannot be written ; it is the dry peculiar way a clever
American tells them that gives them their charm. The
Custom-house kept us a weary while. The officers were all
smoking and in no hurry, but they liked to see others work.
As there were no porters, F. and I had to collect and carry all
the boxes, which were distributed about a barn-like building
in hopeless confusion, having to be hunted up out of its holes
and corners. It was warm work, and I rather wished for a
little less independence and more activity on the part of the
gentlemen who were smoking and looking on at our exertions.
There were no cabs, but we got into a great lumbering thing
like a mourning-coach, and sent on the luggage by an "express,"
which means "come some time." Our horses, after shying

ii Canada and United States 41

right round at a railway train which whizzed past just across
their heads, were driven on to a ferry-boat, which seemed to
consist of two long square tunnels with a steam-engine in the
middle, which with much puffing and groaning crossed the
harhour, and landed us on the other side, together with a
whole string of carriages, and we drove over the badly
paved streets to the Somerset Club, from which F. brought
out a most delicious bouquet of roses and jasmine and other
sweet flowers for me, besides several old friends who came to
welcome his mother home again. Then we called at her old
house in Beacon Street, a sort of Park Lane looking over the
public gardens. It was built, like all the other houses, of a
beautiful dark red sandstone, with silver handles and knockers
to the doors.

Then we drove out to Newton, about six miles into the
country, where Mrs. F. and the baby welcomed us, and next
day she drove me into the lanes, where I found many new
plants ; one of the Sweet Gale tribe, called Comptonia, was
very common by the road -side, and had a delicious scent ;
they called it " Sweet Fern," and indeed its leaf had a brown
furry back, and was much like our ceterach; its leaves are
sometimes dried for smoking instead of tobacco. Large-
leaved oaks, white pines, hemlock spruce and arbor vitse
hedges, wych-elms and maples, all showed one was not in
England.

We finished our drive by a visit to " Jamaica plain " and
its famous confectioner: tied up our pony to a post, then
went inside and ate the largest " ice-creams " in a small and
perfectly undecorated room. I was also introduced to cocoa-
nut cakes and iced gingerbread, all first-rate, and then taken
to see Mrs. S.'s garden, also a model dairy, with great
lumps of ice slowly melting in it, and a regular stove and hot-
water pipes for keeping it to the same temperature in winter,
a new idea to English brains.

In the evening we dined with the parents of my hostess

42 Recollections of a Happy Life CHAP.

at Brookline in the midst of another pretty garden : the whole
piazza round the house was covered by one creeper — a fruitless
vine, a dense mass of foliage. After dinner we strolled through
the near garden and plantations to the top of a little hill to
see a flaming sunset amid great thunder-clouds, and returned
to the piazza for tea, when other neighbours joined us. The
dinner-hour was generally four or five in these country houses,
so that one could always have a stroll or a drive afterwards
to enjoy the beautiful sunsets and evening coolness before
tea-time and darkness came. I found very little dressing-up
necessary, far less than in England.

After three days Mrs. S. and I settled ourselves in the
house she had taken near West Manchester. It was built on
the foundation of a fort or tower on the rocks, against which
the sea washed on three sides at high water ; the rocks were
tinted with pink, red, brown, and gray, and above high-water
mark with soft gray, green, and yellow lichens, wild grass, and
scrub : there was no garden, and we wanted none. On the
west side the sea ran up into a little sandy bay, the very ideal
of a bathing-place ; a few steps would take us down into it
from the back door. On the east side were holes under the
steep rocks, where we could find water at the very lowest
tides, and these were almost as easily reached for bathing.
So we bought some stuff to make bathing-dresses at " John
Loring's, one price-dry-goods-warehouse " in Boston. Mrs. S.
had chosen one of scarlet serge, I one of dark blue -gray,
so that we looked much like two large lobsters in the water,
one boiled, the other unboiled, but spectators were not com-
mon; we had three houses within sight, but none of them
within half a mile. There were endless islands on the coast,
and a lighthouse a mile off, which used to keep its bell per-
petually tolling when there was any fog or mist ; it was deli-
ciously wild and quiet, with a beautiful mixture of rocks and
green, and even a bit of marsh near, with tall bulrushes,
reeds, and ferns, butterflies and wild flowers. Boats, with

ii Canada and United States 43

their clear reflections, were constantly passing over the bay,
and the sea was an exquisite blue in the hot noondays, when
I used to sit in the balcony or piazza which ran all round
the outside of the house, as in most New England houses : on
one side there was always shade and cool air, even on the
hottest days. Our landlord's Newfoundland dog used to pay
us many visits, and stand any length of time in the water
watching me, in hopes of a stone being thrown in and giving him
an excuse for a swim. The house had only just been built,
and was furnished with clean new-polished fir-wood or basket-
work, with Indian matting on the floor. Mrs. S. used to
go up to her town house and bring down pretty things,
brackets, and books, until she soon made it look most home-
like. We had a fat cook, who had imported herself from Ireland
twenty years before, but had not yet exchanged the brogue
for the twang; a housemaid, who left her husband to come
back to her old mistress; and Marguerite of France, who
looked pretty and waited well, saying continually, "que je
suis bete moi ! " and " quelle horreur ! " at everything new,
especially grasshoppers and spiders, occasionally jumping on
chairs to avoid them.

We used to go for a drive of an evening, and bring home
great bunches of scarlet lobelia, which they called the
"Cardinal Flower," white orchids, and grand ferns, smilax,
sweet bay, sumach, and meadow flowers, to dress up our pretty
rooms. The railway station was about four minutes' walk
from our house — a shed with three chairs and a red flag, which
we stuck up on the end of a bamboo placed there for that
purpose if we wanted the train to stop. Newspapers and
letters were thrown out by the guard as he passed ; whoever
happened to be going that way picked them up and distri-
buted them, tossing ours in at any door or window that
happened to be open: we had also a post-box, No. 115, at
West Manchester, in which letters were sometimes found and
brought over by friends.

44 Recollections of a Happy Life CHAP.

Every day some fresh things were sent down to our little
house; first a huge piano of Chickering's which filled two-
thirds of the parlour, and, our captain said, " almost made the
fish jump out of the water to hear it ! " This captain was our
only man, and a sort of king of the coast fishermen : he used
to tie his boats to our rocks, and do " odd chores " for us, and
I soon made fast friends with him. One day Mrs. S.
arrived at the station with seventeen large parcels of pillows,
books, pictures, etc. etc., and I asked the captain to come and
help me to fetch them home : " Wall now, you hain't got a
wheelbarrow, have you ? " And I answered : " Wall now, if
you had only mentioned it in time I'd have brought one over
from England with me, but I didn't know you'd want it." On
which the captain winked at me, and did without it.

We had a carriage with skeleton wheels, and used to drive
along the shores to a real forest, which had never been any-
thing else, though the trees were not very high. Kalmias
and magnolias grew there, but the flowers were over. The
cottages too were often 100 or 180 years old, and all were
built of wood.

It was an idle enjoyable place, but the heat was too dry
and glaring for much work. F. kept us supplied with
American papers, coming backwards and forwards himself
for a night at a time, boiling over with jokes and stories, and
making us laugh till we cried. Sometimes I also used to take
a hot day in Boston, sorting and packing with my friend;
once I persuaded her to rest there quietly till morning, and
started home myself, with a lot of her odds and ends, in the
evening. I "got along " all right, merely getting into a wrong
train, having to wait a while and change at Beverly, which was
clear gain, as I could study the manners and customs of the
jiatives. The guards took most kind care of me, and lifted
my odd parcels in and out of the trains for me, including a
huge basket of crockery, full of ornamental " vayser," a tin
box of butter with ice gradually melting its way out, six

ii Canada and United States 45

parcels tied to two baskets of fruit, one of which came open
on the platform and discharged peaches with marvellous
rolling powers, one red bag, and a parcel of umbrellas, that
was all ! ... There are no porters in America, but every one
is courteous and helpful if you are civil too. When F.
sent letters or papers to his mother by our landlord, who went
to and fro to Boston every day, he always wrote outside,
"By the extreme politeness of Mr. B.," and the old gentle-
man or his son turned out of their way to bring them up to
our piazza with many bows, and we gave them many thanks
and curtseys in return. Curtseys are still practised in New
England, and one soon got into the habit of the thing too •
Americans on first landing among us must be much struck by
our want of manners.

The trains used to mark the hours at "West Manchester,
and on Sundays, when there were none, I never knew how
time went, and wondered that we got our meals as usual.
The food on those days was always extra good — huckleberry-
puddings with cream were quite divine, and corn-cakes and
chowder, a most glorious compound of codfish, soup, and
crackers, not to be tasted off that coast from the St. Lawrence
down to the Hudson. There were no " classes " in the train ;
but one night the ladies were invited to go into another car,
as the workmen would be coming in and there would be plenty
of smoking, " which ladies did not always like," the conductor
explained to me. Tickets are taken and paid for in the
cars. One day we went in them to Lynn, a town which is
entirely inhabited by shoemakers; indeed all the country
round is famous for that work, as the ground is so dry that
agriculturists get but a poor living from it alone. Nearly
every small farmer has a shoe-shop for spare hours and
winter work. From Lynn we drove over a mile or two of
sandy causeway, with sea on both sides, to the former Islands
of Nohant, now a fashionable watering-place. Even there
the houses were all detached, standing well apart, unpreten-

46 Recollections of a Happy Life CHAP.

tious wooden buildings with verandahs round them like ours.
Longfellow was living in the house of his brother-in-law, Mr.
A. The latter had invited us to dinner, and then gone out
on a yachting excursion, which every one said " was just like
him " ; but the grand old poet with his daughters was ex-
pecting us under the piazza, and his kind sweet gentleness of
manner and pleasant talk quite fascinated me. We spent
some most delightful hours listening to him, then missed our
train, and had to return in a slow luggage train. Another
day we dined with some friends in the country and sat all
the afternoon watching the little green humming-birds darting
about the nasturtium flowers trained over the verandah.
They used to build their nests in the apple-trees near, and
come back year after year to the same trees, but my friends
had never marked them particularly, and could not tell
if they were the same birds.

On our way back that night we met a wooden house of
three storeys being moved some hundred yards on rollers by
means of a windlass. It entirely filled the road, and we had
to drive over a field to get out of its way. The Bostonians
have even moved large stone houses bodily in the same way
for some small distance.

I paid a visit to Mr. and Mrs. Adams at Quincy, one of the
oldest houses in America, full of curious family portraits and
furniture, large low rooms, big open fireplaces, many windows,
and old brocade hangings. Except for the outside being
entirely of wood, it might have been taken for a two hundred
years old manor house in England.

Mr. A. had lately added a stone fireproof library,
detached, in the garden, to keep all his precious books and
manuscripts in, for he had whole volumes of Washington's
letters, and many besides written by all his greatest country-
men. His father and grandfather had both been Presidents ;
he might have been one himself, but he never would allow
himself to be put forward as a political candidate at home,

n Canada and United States 47

though he was long his country's representative in England.
He was a remarkably quiet man, but his good wife made up
for it, and her genial chatter used to make him sit and shake
with laughter. It was a very pleasant family to be in, all
the sons and his daughter had such a thorough respect for
their parents, and when he did speak he was always worth
listening to. The two elder sons had built houses within
ten minutes' walk of their father's, and came in every evening
to have a talk with him, going into Boston in the morning
to their business and back by rail. Their children and wives
were in and out all day long. From Colonel A.'s house there
was a glorious view over sea and land, the former being about
a mile off, and the whole coast broken up by estuaries,
islands, and points connected by low isthmuses, so that one
could never feel quite sure where the sea began and the land
ended, being in that respect much like the island of Kugen.

The floors, staircases, and chimney-pieces were of different
sorts of wood — black walnut, butternut, hickory, ash, and
pine — beautifully put together, with very little ornament,
sometimes a line or simple geometrical pattern cut and filled
with blue or red, and the rich natural colour of the wood kept
as a ground-work. Though the house was on the top of a
hill there was abundant water everywhere. In the old
house at Quincy was one room wainscoted with polished
mahogany.

I heard an American story of Lord Grosvenor, who, when
travelling, met a Yankee in the train, who asked him how he
got his living and what trade he followed. He said, "he didn't
do anything, and his father supported him." " What a dear
old gentleman ! How will you ever manage to live when he
dies ? " An American cannot understand that a son succeeds
to his father's property ; they are all expected to make their
fortune for themselves, and it is considered almost a disgrace
for a young man to have " nothing to do." I went one day
with the S.s to see the free library in Boston, a splendid

48 Recollections of a Happy Life CHAP.

building. Any one who is introduced by a note from any
householder in the city may not only read, but take home the
books. I saw quite young girls and boys, as well as numbers
of men and women, reading there. Another good institution
in Boston was the ladies' room attached to the Somerset Club,
at which I often dined or lunched with Mrs. S., F. or one of
the other members passing us in. There were nice dressing-
rooms, and a reading-room, as well as a refreshment-room
expressly reserved for ladies belonging to the members.

The C. F.s were spending the summer near us at West
Manchester, and were very good to me when Mrs. S. was
away. He was partner of Ticknor, and editor of the Atlantic
Monthly, and she a pretty poetess who went into floods of
tears at the mere mention of Charles Dickens, whose name
resembled that of his own " Mrs. 'Arris " in their mouths, and
their room was hung all round with portraits of their
hero.

I enjoyed my expeditions with him and his wife. Ho
invited me to meet Mrs. Agassiz at a picnic one day, and called
for me in his pony carriage, picked her up at the railway
station, and drove us to one of the many beautiful high
headlands on the coast ; then we walked over the cliffs to find
a most curious old cedar-tree, perfectly shaved at the top like
an umbrella pine by the sea winds, with its branches matted
and twisted in the most fantastical way underneath, and
clinging to the very edge of the precipice, its roots being
tightly wedged into a crack without any apparent earth to
nourish it. It was said to be of unknown antiquity, and
there was no other specimen of such a cedar in the country ;
it looked to me like the common sort we call red cedar. We
sat and talked a long while under its shade. Mrs. Agassiz
and I agreed that the greatest pleasure we knew was to see
new and wonderful countries, and the only rival to that
pleasure was the one of staying quietly at home. Only
ignorant fools think because one likes sugar one cannot like

ii Canada and United States 49

•
salt; those people are only capable of one idea, and never

try experiments.

Mrs. A. was a most agreeable handsome woman ; she had
begun life as a rich ball-going young lady, then, on her father
losing his fortune, she had started a girls' school to support her
family, and finally married the clever old Swiss professor,
whose children were already settled in the world. She made
an excellent stepmother as well as travelling companion,
putting his voyages and lectures together in such a manner
that the Americans had a riddle, " Why were Agassiz's Travels
like a mermaiden 1 " " Because you could not tell where the
woman ended and the fish began ! " The Professor was a
great pet of the Americans, who were then just fitting up a
new exploring ship for him to go on a ten months' voyage to
Cape Horn and the Straits of Magellan to hunt for prehistoric
fish in comfort. She told me much of the wonders and
delights of her famous Amazon expedition, and promised me
letters there if I went. After a delightful morning we drove
on to the woods behind Mr. F.'s house, and found luncheon
spread for us, Mrs. T. and her sister, in white aprons and caps,
acting servant-maids and waiting on us. Mr. F. let off a
perfect cascade of anecdotes, and then I was taken into the
house to do my part of the entertainment and sing for an hour,
which I grudged much, as I preferred listening ; but I sup-
pose they liked it, as one of the ladies wept bitterly. After
this we had tea on the piazza, and looked down on the
great wild cliffs and deep blue sea a thousand feet below us.

Another day I went by street-car from Boston to Cam-
bridge, and met two pretty girls, who spoke to me and told
me they were the Miss Longfellows. When we got to the
end of the journey, their father came and took me for a walk
round the different Colleges, and home to have lunch with
him in the house Washington used to live in. It was quite in
what we English call the Queen Anne style, with plenty of
fine trees round it, and large wainscoted rooms full of pictures

VOL. I E

50 Recollections of a Happy Life CHAP.

and pretty things. The luncheon was worthy of a poet —
nothing but cakes and fruit, and cold tea with lumps of ice in
it; he was a model poet to listen to and look at, with his
snow-white hair, eager eyes, and soft gentle manner and voice,
full of pleasant unpractical talk, quite too good for everyday
use. He showed me all his treasures, and asked me to come
and stay with them if I returned to Boston, after which he
showed me the way to Mrs. A.'s house. I found her and the
Professor even more to my mind; he spoke funny broken
English, and looked entirely content with himself and every-
body else. They showed me photographs and told me of all
the wonders of Brazil, and what I was to do there, then gave
me a less poetical dinner. Then Mrs. Agassiz took me to the
Museum and made Count Pourtalez take us up to the attic to
see the most perfect collection of palms in the world (all
mummies), intensely interesting, as illustrating the world's
history. Mrs. Agassiz showed me the great sheath of one of
the flowers, which native mothers use as a cradle and also as
a baby's bath, it being quite water-tight. The flowers of some
of the palms were two to three yards long. She said, though
she had wandered whole days in the forests, she had never
seen a snake nor a savage beast. One day she heard a great
crashing through the tangle and felt rather frightened, when a
harmless milk-cow came out. After seeing the palms she
caught a German professor and made him show us a most
splendid collection of gorgeous butterflies : I never saw any so
beautiful ; they were all locked up in dark drawers, as the
light faded them. Then came corals and madrepores.

I missed my train and had to wait at Boston for the last.
I was rather astonished by the conductor putting his lantern
up to my face and saying, " You are Miss North *[ " He only
laughed when I said " Yes," and I found Mrs. S. considered
me lost, and had been raising a hue and cry after me. Another
day I went by invitation to see Miss Cushman, who was
staying with friends near Beverly ; she was very entertaining

ii Canada and United States 5 1

and kind, and sang me three songs in a most impassioned
way.

Before we left the coast the sumach was turning geranium
colour, and one little hill near looked as if it were burning with
it. The red berberry bushes were also a beautiful deep tint.
I found lots of creeping moss with corkscrew shoots above
ground, and the root creeping underneath for twenty yards or
more, sending up its pretty branches at every joint.

At last Mrs. S. made up her mind to the long-talked-of
journey to Canada, and we started with an enormous quantity
of luggage. We were five hours in the train, passing through
a prettily wooded country dotted with bright autumn colours,
and saw many varieties of people : as there are no classes in
the long American carriages, all sorts are mixed up together.
One girl had a large tom-cat on her knee, who did not like
travelling, and panted with his tongue out like a dog all the
way, every now and then giving most dismal mews.

Iced water in a tin kettle with mugs walked backwards and
forwards through the cars ; we bought a right to drink this
with our tickets ; apples, pears, popped corn and cakes, as
well as Isabella grapes (with the strawberry flavour), were also
brought for sale ; I believe these grapes are the original wild
vine of America. At Alton we left the cars, and a steamer
brought us over the beautiful lake of Winnepiseogee, through
its 365 islands, under the light of a great full moon. The
lake was ten miles long, and the hills sloped gradually one
over the other up to the white mountain-tops of 6000 feet.
The views by daylight were very curious, owing to the
gorgeous colouring of the maples and sycamores ; nothing but
our most brilliant geranium -beds could rival the dazzling
variety of reds and crimsons, and the blue Michaelmas-daisies
made tiny pyramids of colour in the foreground, the white
ones looking like miniature fir-trees loaded with snow. The
lake was particularly lovely on that gray rainy day, with all
its countless islands in their gay autumn dress ; its beautiful

52 Recollections of a Happy Life CHAP.

Indian name, " The Smile of the Great Spirit," seemed to suit
it well. Its hotel was my first experience of the regular
American boarding-house; from six till nine there was an
endless breakfast, twelve to three dinner, and five to eight
supper, with an enormous list of dishes for each individual to
choose from and order for himself — piles of hot cakes like
pancakes, pumpkin-pies made with treacle and eaten with
Cheshire cheese, a huge fish called holibat, and chowder
and ice-cream. The season was nearly over, and the few
remaining guests were much like old German boarders, and
not interesting.

The Glen House had been shut up for ten days, and the
landlord had to be much persuaded to take us in at all, and
said we must be content to have such fare as he and his family
lived on (he looked particularly sleek and fat), and he showed
us into a dining-saloon intended for 400 or 500 people. He
gradually thawed, and said we might stay the night if we liked
and take the chance of the weather being fit for driving up
Mount Washington the next day. There was a railway up on
the other side, but it had ceased to run for the season. Mean-
time I went down among the river boulders and got an exquisite
subject, with some orange and carmine maples bending over
the water, and lemon-coloured feathery birch amongst the dark
pines (spruce firs loaded with cones) and cypresses.

At one of the cascades we visited there was a table laid out
with birch-bark baskets of popped corn, gingerbread nuts, and
apples, and a slate on which was written, " Visitors are begged
to help themselves and to leave five cents for each article taken"
. . . which showed the neighbourhood to be honest. We passed
one little settlement of about three cottages, a meeting-house,
and an inn, which called itself Jackson's City ; but with that
exception, and one or two isolated farms, we saw nothing but
forest all the way. We passed over several rivers on most
crazy bridges, built for the purpose of being carried away in
winter by the ice. The coachman said : " Yes, we has enough

IT Canada and United States 53

hunting in winter ; there's big de-ars, and be-ars and foxes,
and coons, and sometimes we traps them, and sometimes we
puts the dogs arter them." Then we jolted on again to the
railway and secured sleeping-shelves for the night. I had a
good talk with the conductor, a coachman from Bridgewater,
who had come out to make a fortune, had ridden races and
driven a coach, and finally got a berth on the railway, and
thought he should stick to it if it did not kill him; "but
railway accidents was common in that country." After which
agreeable information I slept well on my shelf, in spite of a
most suffocating stove and no ventilation, and woke up in
Canada the next morning near Quebec.

The city seemed to stand up on its hill like Corfu, and the
river was almost hidden by the enormous quantity of floating
timber or lumber. The last boat was going up the Saguenay
in a day or two, but it was far too cold to enjoy such an
expedition. Quebec seemed to me a mongrel place, with
English-looking streets, and French quarters, Irish villages,
and Indian settlements, and the climate was odd. I was
freezing in a cloth jacket, and I found my beautiful friend
Mrs. D. in a white muslin dress. She went round her garden
in the same costume, and seemed to think the air quite genial.
She showed me posts stuck up across the fields to mark the
road by which they sleighed over the tops of the fences in
winter when they were all deeply buried in snow. She was
very charming, and though brought up so luxuriously had no
maid, and attended most minutely to her household and
children. Her house was quite covered with deep claret-
coloured Virginian creeper, and a scarlet and crimson maple-
tree shaded it on one side. I never saw anything more gorgeous
than the colouring of her garden hanging over the high cliff
above the St. Lawrence, four miles from Quebec, near the
place where the English troops under Wolfe mounted and
surprised the French in the war. I stayed two days with
the D.s, and Mr. D. took me down before breakfast by a

54 Recollections of a Happy Life CHAP.

lovely path through the wood, from his garden to the cove
below, to see his men at work on the timber, shaping and
smoothing the ends in the neatest way with their axes. He
had quite a small colony of his own down there. He took me
also for a drive in a native carriage to the pretty little golden
lake of Beaufort. The hills were quite dazzling with colour,
dark tall pines standing up against the rounder foliage. There
was a little inn and a ball-room in which they had picnics in
summer and sledging parties in winter. It seemed difficult to
say which season the Canadians enjoyed most, but I am sure
the winter would be far too long for me. However, Canadian
people seemed very happy, and we had a merry dinner-party
of fourteen that night.

I resisted all invitations to stay, and went off to see the
Falls of Montmorency. It was an afternoon of perpetual
storms, then bright sunshine, and then storms again. The
great fall looked particularly fine under those varying lights
and shades. A river as big as the Avon falling sheer 250 feet,
and yet every particle of water seemed to fall separately like
grains of sand; it was very fascinating. I walked through
the woods and across the fields to the natural steps where the
same river tumbles in a narrow crack through layers of "stink-
limestone," the guide -boy called it. It had the strongest
sulphur smell when freshly broken, and the formation was
very odd. I lingered long on the heights, seeing the storm-
clouds gather over Quebec, and curious rainbows which formed
and melted away again. It was an enchanting spot, and I
sent the boy to fetch my things just for the pleasure of linger-
ing there alone. Close by was a poor used-up dead horse,
closely watched by his friend, a black dog. The poor thing
would not leave it, but nestled close to it, licking it and
whining, then came up to me with tears in its soft brown eyes,
and its tail tucked tight between its legs, asking me to help its
friend as plainly as a dog could ask anything, seeming to know
how willingly I would have helped if I could. It made me

ii Canada and United States 55

cry too. At last the storm came ; the good old landlady of the
small inn came out to me with her umbrella in case I had none,
and I went home and gossiped with her. She had three rooms
to let, and artists often came to stay with her.

Parkman's book made me anxious to see the Indian village
of Loretta, so I drove over to the chief's house first, who,
though said to be of pure blood, looked more like a well-bred
Frenchman. He sold me some moose -hair work. Then I
went to see some of the less civilised and more interesting
people, making friends with one young man with long lank
hair and high cheek-bones. I got him to take me into the
school. The children were a sight worth seeing; plenty of
genuine Indian faces among them, mixed up with French.
They had beautiful large black eyes, and they seemed very
happy. They sang me several wild Indian hymns with soft-
sounding words, in minor keys, with regular rhythm. The
schoolmistress said they had never been written down. In
winter there were as many as 300 Hurons in the village, but
in summer they were spread about, some hunting, and some
doing small pedlaring at watering-places in the way our gipsies
do at home.

We started that same afternoon up the river to Montreal
in a big top-heavy river steamer with grand saloons and com-
fortable sleeping-cabins opening off them. There was a supper-
table so long no one could see the end of it. I sat next the
captain, a modest practical little man, who went with me into
the baggage-hole the next morning himself to dig out Mrs. S.'s
tremendous boxes.

I found friends, the De L.s, who had once dined with us
in England, and who were one of the oldest French families in
Canada, still retaining all the characteristics of their nation.
They were most hospitable. The next morning we went up
by rail to La Chine, and then were carried over the rapids
back again in a steamer. The white waves stretched across
from shore to shore quite two miles, and we went over them,

56 Recollections of a Happy Life CHAP.

and glided past a huge bell-glass of water through which we
saw the dark rock. The waves danced so fiercely against one
another, it took my breath away for a moment or two, and
then it was over. We soon came under the huge bridge over
which our old friend Mr. Brassey spent so much time and
thought. It is truly one of the wonders of the world, but very
ugly. Then we went up the other great river to Ottawa, with
the wood-ashes from the burning forests, a hundred or more
miles off, falling on the steamer's deck and making us sneeze
all the way.

Mr. and Mrs. D. and myself had set our hearts on seeing
the Thousand Islands. The result was not interesting, but we
did not repent waiting for the steam up the St. Lawrence,
which was glorious, with its endless islands, some mere rocks,
some miles in length, and all covered with trees in their gay
autumn dresses, beautiful both in cloud and sunshine. For
three days the air had been thick and hot with smoke ; our
eyes smarted, our lips cracked. People said it was from
Chicago, but it was really from the forests, and had come
even nearer, some twelve miles off from us; the sun only
showed itself as a red ball of fire every now and then
through the smoky atmosphere. We rushed through King-
ston and Toronto, and arrived at ten o'clock at night to find
comfortable rooms at the Clifton Station Hotel, kept by an old
Swiss courier, "Rosli."

I was fairly tired out the next morning, but the quiet
homely quarters suited me, and I determined to stay quiet at
least a fortnight so as to enjoy and sketch Niagara at my
leisure. It was so cold that I was glad of the two miles' walk
back from the falls, after getting half-frozen over my sketching
all day. The season was over, the big hotels nearly closed,
and the wooden shops were being moved away bodily on
rollers to other and warmer quarters for the winter. But
the natives took the greatest interest in my work, and made
several offers to buy it. A woman at a toll-gate, near which I

ii Canada and United States 57

had been sketching a marvellous group of coloured maples
two mornings running, refused to let me pay toll when return-
ing in a carriage, as she said I worked too hard for her to
take anything from me.

The falls far outstretched my grandest ideas. They are
enormous, the banks above and below wildly and richly
wooded, with a great variety of fine trees, tangles of vine
and Virginian creeper over them, dead stumps, skeleton trees,
and worn rocks white with lichens ; the whole setting is
grand, and the bridges are so cobwebby that they seem by con-
trast to make the falls more massive. From my home I could
walk along the edge of the cliff over the boiling green waters
all the way to the falls, and if they had not been there at all
I would willingly have stayed to paint the old trees and water
alone. Mr. Rosli gave me wonderful accounts of the falls in
winter, when great masses of ice came down from Lake Erie,
got jammed between the rocks and banks, and gradually froze
the water between them, then more ice slipped under and it
was lifted up like a bridge ; he said it was a most marvellous
sight, and he had known carriages driven across on the ice
under the bridge, but that did not often happen. It is much
milder at Niagara than in Lower Canada, grapes and peaches
ripen better ; the old arbor-vita3 trees are splendid, as scraggy
as any old silver firs, and the oak trees are drawn up into
grand timber, the trunks rising without a branch for over fifty
feet. It was difficult to choose out of so many subjects where
to begin. The Horseshoe Fall tempted me much, standing close
to its head, with the rapids like a sea behind, and the rain-
bow dipping into its deep emerald hollow; the tints were
endless in their gradations, and delicious, but I got wet through
in the mist.

Another tempting bit was below my home, looking down
on the whirlpool, where the savage green boiling water seemed
piled up in the centre like some glacier; there were fore-
grounds of great arbor-vitse trees almost hanging in the air

58 Recollections of a Happy Life CHAP.

like orchids, with long twisted bare roots exposed against the
edge of the cliff, from which all the earth had been washed.
The rapids about Goat Island on the American side were also
full of wonders. One day it blew such a gale that I had to
sit down and hold on tightly to the bars of the bridge on
returning; no carriages attempted it that day. There are
thirty-five minutes difference in the time on the two sides of
that bridge, and passengers are charged 40 cents for walking
over.

I talked to a good many of the regular tourist Yankees ;
they were of a very different sort from my friends near Boston.
(The Cataract House is a famous honeymoon resort.) "Now
I guess you'll get a long price for that thing when it's done.
What are you going to ask *{ " They seemed to have no idea
of work being done except for dollars.

The Head Guide of the Falls, who came out from Scotland
forty-seven years before, patronised me, and told me if I got
chilled at any time just to go and ask his missus to give me a
good cup of coffee, it 'ud do her heart good to make it for me.
He showed me some lovely views at the bottom of a rickety old
tower about seventy feet high, with a corkscrew staircase wind-
ing round one noble pole in the centre. The tower is fastened
half-way down to the side of the cliff by an iron bar ; it shakes
and trembles with every step of persons going up or down.
When I had settled to my work on the boulders below,
between the two huge roaring falls, I began to think what
would happen if it were to tumble down, and they were to
forget my being there. But I had plenty of company passing
and repassing after the first morning hours. Strange figures
in suits of yellow oilskin came and looked at me at intervals.
When I had got my sketch in, and myself sufficiently soppy,
I went farther under the spray of the American fall and saw
three quarters of a circle of rainbows on it, and watched the
yellow oilskin people scrambling over the huge boulders in
and out of the clouds of spray ; they had left the paths and

ii Canada and United States 59

bridges, and were tempting death from the mere love of
danger, but with that steady nerve and strength which
showed them to be beef-fed islanders, and fit compatriots of
Tyndall.

I was too excited to do more work on that day, so I took
a carriage, drove over the bridge and up the rapids on the
Canadian side, watching their lovely lines of dancing surf and
their white horses. After a couple of miles we came to the
Sulphur Springs ; they are close to the edge of the mad waters,
and a building is raised over them. I went into a dark room,
and the guide set fire to a pipe at the end of a sort of wooden
extinguisher over the spring ; a flame of nearly two feet high
blazed up, with a large space of blue vapour between the
point of the flame and the mouth of the tube, so that one
could put a piece of muslin over the opening of the pipe
without burning it. The guide let down his torch into the
actual spring which I saw bubbling up, and the flame ran
about over it. The water did not taste very nasty.

While at Clifton I got a letter from two old Norfolk
servants of my father, John and Betsy Loades, who had
settled in Pontiac in Illinois. He was one of our Rougham
boys, and eventually became our coachman, and could turn
his hand to anything; he married our cook, and they had
both helped me to nurse my father, and would have no other
master when he died, but emigrated with their two girls to
America. Betsy Loades now wrote, "that after knocking
about at Chicago and other places, they had settled at Pontiac
on the Vermilion River, and John had work for the winter on
a new railway ; they liked the place, and' hoped to buy land
there in time ; that a man might rent a good farm (as soon as
he was able to get a team and a few machines to work his
land with), on which he could make a great deal of money in
a few years to provide for old age."

I could not resist the temptation to go and see them
and something of the prairie country besides, so I left my

60 Recollections of a Happy Life CHAP.

portmanteau with Mr. and Mrs. Rosli, and went off with
my small hand-bag and sketch-book to Toronto, to refill my
purse and see my cousin Dudley's friends, Judge G. and
his family.

All the fashionable people at Toronto live out of sight of
the lake, and its edge is taken up by warehouses and wharfs,
yet its banks are very lovely and well wooded. All the trees,
except the cedars and large-leaved oaks, were then bare of
leaves ; the oaks were a rich copper or purple brown, with
now and then a sumach shining out like a carnation in front
of all the neutral tints. The small curling waves on the shore
remind one of a real sea, but Toronto is not the least attractive
or picturesque.

The G.s put me into a Pullman car the next morning, and
for 75 cents extra I was in solitary glory till 8 o'clock at
night, with only the occasional society of three guards and the
black man in charge, who now and then came up to say,
"Wall, how are you? Quite comf or-table 1 " At Sarnia we
had to cross a ferry to the other side of the St. Clair river, and
then get into crowded cars the- very reverse of the solitary
luxury I had had all day. Such a rough lot, — they could not
have been rougher, — but they seemed to know I was a lady,
and gave me a seat to myself, and no annoyance.

We were turned out at Detroit, and the guard warned me
to be quick, for the Great Western Express would barely stop,
and indeed it was rolling on again before I was fairly inside
the door. After that I fell into the hands of another black
keeper of sleeping-cars, who persuaded me to take a whole
compartment and pay an enormous sum ; but I was tired of
roughs, and enjoyed having room and peace, with two windows
to look out at the burning forests on each side. It was a
curious and fearful sight. Every mile or two we came to
blazing roots and pillars of fire, often the tops alone blazing
like giant torches, scattering sparks all around, which made
passing dangerous. It looked a most ghastly sight all through

ii Canada and United States 6 1

that dark night. At last we came to the white sand-hills
round the great Lake Michigan.

It was pouring with rain, and we went over endless bogs.
Damp farmers and their families came in and out all the way.
We reached Joliet just in time to see the train I wanted to go
on by leaving the station and going slowly out of sight. There
was no other passenger train till eight at night, so I decided to
go by the freight train in two hours, and having had nothing
but coffee and biscuits for twenty-four hours, I went to a
baker's and had more coffee and bread for dinner. All those
country towns seemed very poor, as if they were making a
struggle to exist at all ; with little houses dotted over a large
space of ground, and wooden boards laid down between them
to keep one from sinking in the soft mud. The nice baker's
wife was rather doubtful about the freight train. If it was
full they might be a rough lot, she said ; women hardly ever
went that way. However, I risked it, and was most comfort-
able, and hospitably treated in the one carriage, the guard's
van, with three windows and three doors, a great stove in the
middle, a divan all round, and an arm-chair and two stools,
quite a cosy little room. There were three guards — one from
some other line who was out for a holiday with his wife and
sister, two very pretty women. Some played at cards, and
the others looked on, and it was altogether a picturesque
scene, but rather slow progress, as we had to stop to let every-
thing else pass. The guards kept perpetually going in and
out in most juggler-like ways through windows and doors,
coming down feet first off the roof. Now and then strange
men came in for a stage or two, all decent but very damp
people. The elder guard told me he did not believe it was a
bit better for a working man there than in England; for
though they might get better wages, the living was so costly,
and as soon as he had made enough he should go straight home
to England.

At last we reached Pontiac about ten o'clock, and the guard

62 Recollections of a Happy Life CHAP.

lighted me on to a pavement (boards), and told me to follow
" that gentleman," he would show me the way to the hotel ;
so I tramped after him through the mud and rain, and he
(a mere labourer) showed me the way most kindly, found the
landlord out of a crowd of people in the shop below, and I
soon had a capital supper and bed, which, though only a bag
of straw, was a great luxury. The paper was all in tatters ;
there was no handle (but three bolts) on my door, but I felt
quite safe, and slept soundly. The next morning the black
cook brought me my breakfast at seven on a tray with nine
saucers on it, containing one egg, one fish, one cutlet, one hot
roll, one pat of butter, toast, cakes, biscuits, corn-cakes, a cup
of coffee, a glass of milk, cup of sugar, and saltcellar. I never
saw so much on one tray before, and felt equal to anything
after such a sleep and such a meal, and started to find "Big
John."

First I went to the post-office. The postmaster had never
heard his name ; he was a new-comer himself ; I had better
ask next door. Next door was a shoemaker and watchmaker
combined, and he had his eye fixed in a magnifying glass over
the anatomy of a damp clock. He was a thorough English-
man, and remembered both John and his watch, and described
them, but could not say where he lived. Other gossips dropped
in who also knew him, but not where he lived, and they
advised my going to the new railway where he worked. So I
tramped on again through the rain and the mud outside the
town to the new station, and the stationmaster told me if I
walked up the line I " should find him in a fur cap," which I
did, and John straightway took off that fur cap and dashed it
on the ground, and said, "Laws, if that beant Miss Mary hand !"
Then went and told his " boss " he must have a holiday, and
took me home to see Betsy. Poor fellow, he was the ghost of
his old self. So thin from constant attacks of dumb-ague, but
he said he meant and hoped to live it down, and thought he
should get on in time. The ague only attacked new-comers.

ii Canada and United States 63

He had a good boss, and got nearly two dollars a day, His
wife made the best of everything in the same way. They took
me for a walk through the fields ; all the land was black but
rich, and magnificent crops of corn and even grapes grew with-
out manure. The soil had only to be turned over, without any
harrowing, or cleaning, or manuring ; the corn was thrown on
it, and it yielded 80 to 1 00 bushels per acre. Grapes also yielded
enormous crops the second year after planting. The ground
was always moist, though they had had no rain for months,
and no water fit to drink. Fencing was the great expense, as
there was no wood. They had good coal quite near. Every
"respectable" man carried a revolver in a pocket made on
purpose, and John said he would not like the neighbours to
know he had not a gun in the house. He was full of schemes
for buying land and growing crops, as well as tobacco, but
meant to try a year first if he could beat the ague, and if he
had been a little more of a " scholard" he might easily have
become a "boss" himself. The men always said he looked
like one 'cos of his leather gaiters.

We saw grand fields of Indian corn-stalks on which the
cattle feed in winter, and weeds as high as the corn — iron- weed
and cockle-berries. The farming was most wasteful ; one field
was quite white with the shed beans left on the ground. The
Reformatory School was a grand building with a model farm
attached, kept up by Government; but the black, swampy,
spongy ground and John's ague depressed me. Betsy baked
capital new bread, and roasted a chicken for dinner, and while
we were out the girls had swept up and made the house look
smart. The chickens cost little to keep, as they feed on all
the neighbours' ground ; but the neighbours when they wanted
one never hesitated to kill yours as well as their own, expect-
ing you to do the same. They also had a habit of walking
in when it suited them, and making themselves quite at home,
in a manner that was not always convenient ; but if you were
ill they loaded you with kindness, so that you could not resent

64 Recollections of a Happy Life CHAP.

their cool ways. At the last place they had lived Betsy often
heard a curious rattling going on when washing in the cellar,
and one day saw a large rattlesnake come in and disappear in
a hole in the floor. The neighbours advised her not to anger
it, as where there was one there were sure to be more, but she
left off washing in that cellar. One day she saw the cat
dragging in a long snake to give to her kittens. She chased
both beasts awa}', and supposed that the cat ate the snake, as
she returned licking her lips and purring very happily. Betsy
made her own soap and carpets.

At four o'clock the next morning I heard everybody
moving, and saw a great light ; it was a fire in the midst of
the wooden houses, so I dressed and got myself ready to fly
if necessary, but it was soon put out. Four houses were
burned, and nobody doubted it was done on purpose. Many
of the Chicago scamps were about ; they had been shooting
chloroform in at the keyholes, and then, -when the victims
were quieted, and the dangerous fumes dispersed, they got
into the houses and robbed them. They were now on their
trial, and the four houses burnt belonged to persons who had
witnessed against them. Betsy said the burners would be
hung if they were caught. She came to me at eight, and
soon after the landlord's son brought his buggy to drive me
to Chenoa, only a ten miles' drive, to catch the twelve o'clock
train to Logansport.

Another long day was passed in skirting the southern
shore of Lake Erie. I passed more pretty country, full of
snake-fences and ague, and saw the big lake with waves like a
real salt sea. I met many nigger "gentlemen" that day in
the train, in full evening-dress coats, rings on their fingers,
and gold chains, with their hair oiled and straightened as
much as possible, and the full extent of possible dandyism.
They were extraordinarily polite, lending their newspapers,
and giving up their seats to any lady looking for one, after-
wards sitting with their feet above their heads, and talking

n Canada and United States 65

the grossest slang with some Irish roughs, or the news-boys.
I took these black gentlemen for ex-Chicago swells, or billiard-
markers.

Toledo seemed a busy manufacturing place, and Cleveland
was even bigger. They are monstrous places, as black as
Manchester ; most of the people in the cars were quiet country
people, but they had an anxious worn look one does not see
in the same class at home.

At Buffalo I had to drive in an omnibus to another station,
and then on again by rail. I was put out on the American
side of the suspension bridge, and had to walk across in the
dark starlight over the roaring river, while a train rolled over
my head at the same time, shaking every iron bar. The
Canadian toll-taker rubbed his eyes, and said, " I was wonder-
ing what had become of you ! " and refused with indignation
to look in my bag for tobacco. Mr. and Mrs. Eosli shook me
by both hands, and sent me up buttered toast for tea; my
little room looked quite like home again, and, but for the cold
icicles hanging round the window, would have tempted me to^
stay on. I took a last stroll to say good-bye to all my pet
views of the mighty waters.

I started by the night train so as to get to Albany by day-
light and see the Hudson river afterwards.

The Hudson seemed to me like a very mild Rhine minus
the castles. A clever talking woman travelled part of the
way with me ; she said she had been sent for her education to
Leipzic among strange languages, dishes, and ways, had had
no letters for the first month, and felt just like Columbus !
She was very good-natured, and on our arrival at New York
put me into a fly with my luggage. That quarter of an hour's
drive cost me eight shillings ! New York is not cheap. At
the Hofmann House they gave me a very good room, looking
on a deep well, with windows all round it, hot and cold water
laid on, cupboards and all sorts of nice furniture, and five
dollars printed on the door, a pound a day for room alone !
VOL. I F

66 Recollections of a Happy Life CHAP.

My food came in as I ordered it, from a restaurant, and was
ood and cheap.

I found a heap of letters to answer, and took a day's rest ;
then I went to call on Doctor Emily Blackwell, waiting in her
back room till all the patients had had their turn, when she
came out and we had a long talk. She was a most jolly
woman. She showed me her infirmary ; about a dozen women
and babies were all in one room, very clean and airy. She
took out a day -old gingerbread baby to show me, such a
funny little object with huge eyes, and the mother looked
after it just as I have seen a cat do when its kittens were
interfered with. Then she took me to see the female students
being lectured to by a man; elaborate curls seemed the
fashion among them, rather than the prevailing chignon.

I went home to luncheon and packed my bag, returned to
the ferry, and by it to the railway. In another half -hour
Mr. S. met me : he looked an ideal of benevolence and philan-
thropy, one of New York's most respected merchants; his
carriage and ungroomed horses were shabby to the last degree ;
he drove himself, and I held the old patched reins while he
did various errands in A., which was one of the oldest settle-
ments in America, and quite an historical place ; it was
situated on an arm of the sea which looked like a lake, near
which was the house of Eagleswood, a comfortable but not
showy dwelling. That morning the old gentleman with his
son and a fisherman had saved the lives of three boys from
drowning, their boat having turned over in a squall.

Instead of going straight back to New York I got out at
Newark, and went by horse -car to Orange, where I left my
bag at the office, and walked off in search of Sydney Clack,
the young gardener my father had had at Hastings, who also
emigrated after his death. After a few false starts, I found
my way through the woods to Mr. M.'s house, prettily placed
on a long wooded hill with a view of New York and the
Hudson river fifteen miles off. I found Sydney in his green-

ii Canada and United States 67

house, looking well and happy, with two or three men under
him, and forty dollars a month, his board and lodging ; he
had several nice greenhouses, and beautiful flowers. He asked
me if I would go in to see Mrs. M., who had told him to be
sure to ask me to go in if I came. She was very hospitable,
and pressed me to stay and come again. Then Sydney came
back dressed like a young gentleman to see me safe home ; he
said he was very glad he came out to America, that any one
with a distinctive profession and the will could do well there,
and he asked me to write him a character saying what he
could do. My agent at Hastings had written him one about
being " honest and industrious," but that was just the thing
they did not care for in the States. The particular line a
person excels in was what they cared to know ; idleness and
dishonesty did not matter half so much. He thought John
would have done more wisely to have taken a good coach-
man's place, instead of losing health in those horrid prairies.

When I got back to the Hofmann House, I found a kind
invitation from Mr. Church (the first of living landscape
painters) to come and see him and his wife at their cottage
at Hudson. They never got my answer, and I missed my
train, and only reached Hudson in darkness and rain at half-
past eight. I got into a fly and told the man to drive to Mr.
Church's. 'All right,' said the man, and put two other
persons in (a way they have in the States), and on we went.
Presently he opened the door : ' Where did Mr. Church live 1 '
How should I know ? but the other passengers said six miles
off; so I went to an inn for the night, and then started in a
buggy, and met Mrs. C. in the road coming to hunt for me,
and she took me home. She and her husband were quite
ideal people, so handsome and noble in their ways and
manners. They had four children. The eldest, Fred, had
a supernaturally wise look, and told long stories to his
brothers with the greatest gravity. Sometimes Mr. C.
made him spin yarns in the same way to us, interrupting him

68 Recollections of a Happy Life CHAP.

with questions, and trying to put him out and make him
contradict himself ; but the boy always had a ready answer
and a reason for everything. They were still living in their
old cottage-farm ; but the new house on the top of the little
hill above them was already roofed in and approaching com-
pletion. Mr. C. had designed it himself after the pattern
of a Damascus house, with a court in its middle paved with
marble, having a splashing fountain in its centre. He had
also had bricks and tiles made of different oriental patterns
and ornamented the outside with them, but the floors were
not yet laid down. The view from the arched entrance was
fine, of the Catskill Mountains (then white with snow) and the
winding Eiver Hudson.

The studio was a detached building, with a picture in
progress of Chimborazo, which seemed to me perfection in
point of truth and workmanship. He showed me other
tropical studies which made me more than ever anxious to go
and see those countries.

In my own tiny bedroom were three pictures in oils — one
of the Horse-Shoe Falls of Niagara, a study of magnolia
flowers, and one of some tropical tree covered with parasites.
They had imported two white asses from Damascus for Mrs.
C. and the children to ride, and had also a gray South
American donkey, quite curiosities in the United States,
where the animal is almost unknown.

On my return I found a note from Mrs. M. (Sydney's
mistress) asking me to come and stay with them, and as I
liked to see as much as I could of life in America, I went back
to Orange in the pouring rain, and Mr. M met me at the
station. We had a late dinner in the English style, with
wine (which one does not often see on the table). Mr. M.
told me a great deal of Chicago and the city of forty years
before, its first rapid growth of poor houses on a most unat-
tractive unhealthy spot, then how they raised first the roads,
and then the houses (with a few exceptions) with screws to

ii Canada and United States 69

the level of the roadways, and finally built the great stone
houses which replaced the others : how they bored a tunnel
three miles under the lake, and then had a pipe put at the
end so as to get pure drinking water — also of the wonderful
way they drained the sluggish river.

At a quarter past seven we had breakfast, and the boys
and their father went off for their day's work by rail, and
after a gossip over the plants in the greenhouse with Sydney,
Mrs. M. drove me through the park, not long before a
natural forest, then sold in lots to rich merchants for
building and farming. A speculator had made seven miles
of winding road through it. The views were fine ; there were
wild rocks, glens, ferns, wild azaleas, and dogwood which in
spring is covered with white flowers (like snow, they said).
Some of the houses were pretty ; some odd and unpractical
ones had been designed by the original speculator when under
the influence of " the spirits," who did not seem to excel in
architecture, I thought.

On my way back I found the ferry crowded with smartly
dressed people thronging to welcome the young Grand Duke
Alexis of Eussia, and I began to wonder how I should get on,
when a lady told me to follow her, which I did, and she
showed me the best omnibus. She was taking two pretty
children to see the sight. Broadway was covered with flags
and gay hangings.

Mrs. Botta was my best friend in New York, and soon
made me leave the hotel and take up my quarters in her
house. She was a most charming and cultivated person, had
written one or two books on education, and brought up more
than one set of orphan children just for love, having none of
her own. She lived with her mother, was a lady of inde-
pendent fortune, and had married an Italian professor.

She took me to many studios and exhibitions, where I
saw some good paintings, but a great preponderance of French
millinery amongst the favourite pictures. The prices of

7o Recollections of a Happy Life CHAP.

dresses in the shops were terrific, three hundred or four
hundred dollars each, and gloves ten shillings a pair. No
wonder the Americans come to do their shopping in Europe.

Mr. M. took me one morning over the "Equitable Life
Insurance Company," a perfect palace of Pompeian frescoes,
Italian marbles, and inlaid American woods. We went in the
lift on to the roof, from whence is the best view of the city,
river, islands, and sea. There was no smoke, but many white
tassels of steam from the different steam-lifts and other small
machines. I was struck by the absence of domes and
ornamental towers in the huge place. The principal hall of
the great building was like some Byzantine Church for
gorgeousness, and to my thinking somewhat out of character
with the clerks who were scribbling in it. We went to
see the clerks' dining-room and kitchen, and then into the
"Safe Deposit Vaults," a wonderful museum of locks and
drawers, bolts and bars, hedged in with granite, iron, and
telegraphic wires. If the door were moved the eighth of an
inch it touched a telegraph and warned the police. It could
only be opened by two of the head people ; one could not do
it alone. My head got quite in a maze over it all. Three
men walk round and round all night between the inner and
outer walls of this terrible treasure store, and look to the
gratings. There seemed nothing combustible in the building.
There was something horrible about the whole thing, with

defiance of evil-doers or accident. New York was alto-
gether overwhelming in its constant movement, ugliness, and
method ; but still it had, like all big cities, much to attract
and interest any one who could think.

The first night at Mrs. B.'s, after our supper-tea, we all
walked out about nine o'clock to the horse-cars, and then on
again and up a side street to Mr. R's, the literary critic of
the Tribune. It was not a party, but just " a few friends,"
and most agreeable, for the friends were of the best sort :
they wore only high dresses, and my old square-cut body

ii Canada and United States 7 1

felt almost indecent, the others were so decidedly "high."
I was introduced to plenty of people whose names I did not
catch, and had a long chat with M. du Chaillu, just home
from Norway, where he had been as far north as he could
get — an odd contrast to his last wanderings among the
gorillas !

There were many artists there, including one who had
painted the chief beauties of New York as the Nine Muses.
I promised to go and see them. He had also, when in Eng-
land, painted John Bright, Cobden, and Tom Potter. He was
an Italian, and said Tom Potter was a good man, Bright was
amusing, but Cobden he "loaved" ! At eleven o'clock plates^
of cold salad, sandwiches, and oysters were handed round,
with a napkin to put on the knees under them, with tiny
glasses of wine, after that ice-creams and cakes, and then
coffee and chocolate. The guests seemed to enjoy their picnic
supper, after which we walked home again most of the way.

Mr. De Forest came one morning and took me to the
Johnstone Gallery, a most exquisite collection of pictures.
The great Niagara and a beautiful sunset scene in a swamp
by Church were there. The latter is a wonderful picture.
The four ages of life by Coles, and splendid Mullers and
Cromes were there too. Every picture was a gem. We went
one night to the opera to hear Nilsson as Marguerite. She
was not appreciated, and the audience were most cold. All
their applause was given to the French tenor Capoul, who
was the fashion, and all the girls raved about him. The
Grand Duke Alexis was there, a handsome well-grown middy.
It was funny to see the audience rise gradually to the Russian
hymn. We resisted as long as any one ; but got up at last
to do honour to the son of the Czar.

We were offered tickets to go in a steamer up the Hudson
to Westpoint and back with H.I.H., but did not see the fun
of being frozen on deck, or broiled in a cabin in high
Russian society, so begged to be excused, and I went on to

72 Recollections of a Happy Life CHAP.

Washington with a parcel of clam-sandwiches in my bag,
which Mrs. B. made with her own dear hands, cutting a roll
in half, buttering it, and putting the odd fishy things between ;
they come out of bivalve shells something like our scallops.

I did not stop at Philadelphia, but went straight to Mrs.
Eussell Gurney * at Washington at 1512 H. Street. The mode
of distinguishing houses in America is certainly monotonous,
but has the great merit of being easy to find, and the streets
generally run at right angles to one another. Mr. G-. had
given up his comfort at home to come and try to settle
the Alabama question, and was very weary of the task.
Month after month passed, and still nothing was settled.
It was very cold, and I felt sorry for my friends there;
they were most kind and hospitable to me. The first day
I went to see Dr. and Mrs. Henry in their pretty museum
building, built of pink stone with much-ornamented round
archways, and creeping plants over it, and Miss H. showed me
many interesting things. There was a large collection of
birds' nests, and one trunk of a tree with holes made all over
it by a Californian woodpecker in order to pick out its own
pet grubs ; then the chipmunk or squirrel puts the acorns in,
which another bird steals again. We saw also the last of the
auks, with its one odd egg ; and a horrid little baby mummy
which was tossed out of the middle of the earth by an earth-
quake in South America, and was supposed to be one of the
very oldest of dead human beings.

We had a party at home of diplomatic people who discussed
some of the new American ways. The young ladies have
clubs among themselves, and give parties on alternate nights
during the winter, every "Miss" bringing a gentleman.
Mamma only has the privilege of giving the supper, appearing
while it is being eaten, and retiring afterwards. Papa is
allowed the privilege of paying for it, and does not appear at
all. These girls go out to other people's houses under the
escort of some young gentleman. Pas and mas have a dull
1 Wife of the High Commissioner and Recorder of London.

ii Canada and United States 73

life of it in U.S. society. When a man calls at a house he
never asks for the mother, only for the girls, and the mother
does not appear ; if she did she would be snubbed, and made
to know her place very quickly.

I had a card brought me the next morning, " the Secretary
of State " and Mr. Fish followed it, to whom I had a letter of
introduction. He was a great massive man, with a hard sensible
head. He said he would call for me in the evening, and take
me to the White House. So at eight o'clock in he came again
after another big card, I being all ready for him in bonnet and
shawl, and in no small trepidation at having to talk tite-h-Ute
with the Prime Minister in a small brougham. However, I
found there was no need, as he did it all himself. We were
shown in first to the awful crimson satin room which Mrs. G.
had described to me, with a huge picture of the Grant family
all standing side by side for their portraits. Then we were
told to come upstairs, and passed from state-rooms to ordinary
everyday life up a back staircase, which was the only means
of reaching the upper storey allowed by the architect of
seventy years ago. We were shown into a comfortable library
and living-room, where a very old man sat reading the news-
paper, Mrs. Grant's papa, who did not understand or hear any
of the remarks Mr. Fish or I made to him. Then came Mrs.
Grant, a motherly, kind body ; then at last came the President,
also a most homely kind of man.

We at first sat rather wide apart, and I had more of the
talk to do than I enjoyed, and felt like a criminal being
examined till Mrs. Grant hunted up a German book full of
dried grasses to show me, and the poor withered sticks and
straws brought dear Nature back again. I put on my spectacles
and knelt down at Mrs. Grant's knee to look at them. They
began to find out I was not a fine-lady worshipper of Worth,
and we all got chatty and happy. Mrs. Grant confessed she
had no idea " Governor Fish had brought me with him, or she
would not have let me upstairs, but didn't mind now " ; and

74 Recollections of a Happy Life CHAP.

she told me all about her children ; and if I had stayed long
enough would, I have no doubt, have confided to me her
difficulties about servants also. The two big men talked
softly in a corner as if I were not there, and I watched till Mr.
Fish looked like going away, and then I rose. They were all
so sorry I could not stay the winter there, and hoped I would
come again, etc. etc., like ordinary mortals; and Mr. Fish
showed me a water-colour drawing of the Grants' country
house, took me into a blue satin room, which he said was very
handsome, and conducted me home again.

I wondered if Gladstone or Dizzy would have taken as
much trouble for the daughter of an American M.P. who
brought a letter from the Secretary of an English embassy.

The next morning I found a big envelope with a huge G. on
it, and a card inside from the President and Mrs. Grant asking
me to dinner that night. The Gurneys had another, so we
went in state and were shown into the blue satin oval room,
well adapted for that sort of ceremony, and the aide-de-camp
General Porter came and made himself most agreeable to us.
Then came two Senators and the Secretary of Foreign Affairs,
and then the President and his wife arm in arm, with Miss
Nelly and a small brother, and grandpapa toddling in after.
He had an armchair given to him, and General Grant told me
he was so heavy that he had broken half the chairs in the
house, and they were very careful about giving him extra
strong ones now. After a terrible five minutes, dinner was
announced, and to my horror the President offered me his
arm and walked me in first (greatness thrust upon me). I
looked penitently across at Mrs. Gurney, who looked highly
amused at my confusion, and did not pity me in the least. I
was relieved by finding the great man did not care to talk
while he ate, and General Porter was easy to get on with on
my other side. He seemed to know every place, inhabited
and uninhabited, in America.

He gave me some curious accounts of the few remaining

n Canada and United States 75

Indians, some of whom are as near animals as mortals can be,
too lazy to look for food till the strong pangs of hunger seize
them, when they sit in a circle and beat down the grasshoppers
with whips, gather them up and crush them in their hands,
eating them just as they are, and then sleep again till the next
fit of hunger seizes them. The President drank tea with his
dinner, and had every dish handed to him first. He seemed
an honest blunt soldier, with much talent for silence. His
wife had a funny way, when shaking hands with people, of
looking over their heads, and appearing to read off their names
out loud from some invisible label there. I was taken out
from dinner in the same distinguished manner, being made to
stop in the red satin room and admire the family portraits
and the youngest boy in a Grant tartan and kilt. I asked the
President if he did not mean to go some day and hunt for his
relations in Scotland, but he said he had quite lost all trace of
them, four generations of his family having lived in America,
and that he was "raised" in Ohio; and he sat down by
me and was quite conversational. I told him about my visit
to Pontiac. He said it was quite possible to live down ague,
and that after seven or ten years of cultivation the prairies
ceased to be unhealthy. How sad it is that the first brave
men who make the country must be the victims to its climate.

General Cameron promised if I would come back in spring
to take me to a place in Pennsylvania, only eight hours off,
where they still talked pure Elizabethan English, and to another
where they can talk nothing but Dutch, having kept them-
selves always apart from their neighbours. Miss Nelly got
scolded for not playing the piano. She was kept very much
at home, and not allowed to go with any of the fast girls of
the day.

After that party we went to hear Santley sing. The
Americans did not appreciate our great baritone any more
than they did Nilsson, and I felt grieved that such a real
artist should have thrown away his talent on such an audience.

76 Recollections of a Happy Life CHAP.

The dear old Kecorder slept, as only M.P.'s do, waking up after
every piece to clap, and looking pleased too. The G-.s were
quite surprised (as I was) at the fuss the Grants had made
about me, as they never gave dinners (they themselves had
only dined there once before, when the High Commissioners
first went over). I could not think what I had done to deserve
all this ; but after I left it came out. Mrs. Grant talked of
me as the daughter of Lord North, the ex-Prime Minister of
England. I always knew I was old, but was not prepared for
that amount of antiquity.

"We drove out to Arlington, the late home of General Lee,
a tasteless building of would-be classical style in a beautiful
situation, with distant views of Washington; a one-armed
ague-stricken soldier was its only inhabitant.

It blew a perfect gale of wind whilst we were in that
dismal place, and we were glad to get out of it again. The
large-leaved oaks were still holding on tightly to their brown-
papery leaves, and kept up a continual crackle and rustle.
In and about all the great towns of the States I saw little
houses built for the accommodation of sparrows ; the birds had
been imported from England to get rid of a caterpillar which
had been infesting the trees and eating up everything. The
sparrows seemed to take kindly to their new homes and diet,
but it was still a problem how they would endure the winter.
The Potomac was frozen, and people were skating everywhere.

We went in the evening to a woman's meeting at which
there were more men than women ; all the men who would
not go and hear men preach on Sundays seemed to make up
for it there.

Miss H. brought me some beautiful dried specimens of the
\ creeping fern with leaves like ivy which only grows at some
place in Connecticut ; it had been so much picked that a law
was made and a heavy fine imposed on any one taking more
of it. Writing of law reminds me that there was another
State in America where divorces were so common that a

ii Canada and United States 77

lawyer would do the thing cheaply by the dozen, if you could
take a sort of season-ticket for a set before you committed the
folly of matrimony for the first time ; ,one woman was pointed
out to me who had been divorced eight times.

One morning we went to the opening of Congress; we
drove to the Capitol after breakfast, a really handsome white
marble palace with a large dome over its centre j then
wandered on up and down, asking our way till we got to the
gallery reserved for diplomats in the Lower House, and were
told to take the front seats by Mr. P. the publisher to whom I
had a letter, and who seemed to be a universal busybody and
most important personage. The House looked twice as large
as our House of Commons ; all the names were read over to
" the Bar of the House " (though there was no Bar). The oaths
were decidedly calculated to keep truth-telling Southerners
out, as they swore they had never counselled nor helped in
any rebellion against the government of the U.S., etc. etc.
There were two black M.P.'s particularly well dressed (not
a general fault in the assembly), and there was a very
ample supply of bald heads, as well as some preposterously
young-looking men. There was a female reporter among
the others in gold bracelets and a tremendous hat and
feathers ; the messengers were all boys, who dashed about
continually amongst the members below, sitting between
whiles on the steps of the Tribune. After a while a quorum
of both Houses was declared, and a message sent to know if
the President had anything to say to them. The House
adjourned for half an hour, so we went out, and afterwards
into the Upper House, where we stayed to hear the President's
Message read, as it was done at the same time in both Houses.
The Senate House looked dull after the other, and the
Message was very long, it took nearly half an hour to read.
The boy -messengers there were smaller than in the other
House, some of them did not look more than eight years old ;
they sat on the steps of the Speaker's platform, and were very

78 Recollections of a Happy Life CHAP.

ornamental, reminding me of little boys in the foreground of
old Italian paintings. We saw Sumner there, with a grand
head ; Butler, too, I saw in the other House. The lower one
was filled with desks standing in pairs, and as they were
distributed by lot, people who did not love one another must
occasionally have been rather closer than they liked. There
were only seventy altogether in the Senate, and each senator
had his own desk, armchair, and spittoon. Both Houses
seemed to have newspapers and periodicals on their desks,
and could read through dull speeches openly, without having
to creep up to dark corners of the gallery, as I have seen some
highly respected M.R's in our own House (with Dickens's last
number in their hands). Tobacco and cigars were selling in
the lobbies. The central hall and passages were lofty, and
full of fine marbles and frescoes.

On my return to New York, Mrs. Botta took me to some
private theatricals in a friend's house. She had a real
dramatic gift, and could make her audience either cry or laugh
as she pleased. " She was a heaven-born genius," as a young
German present called her. We had music, and I had to sing
also ; the amateur ladies had some very lovely voices among
them, but chose Italian bravura songs far too difficult for
them. It is odd how few people know the secret that a song
cannot be too easy to sing well before an audience, and that
the easier it is the more it generally pleases.

Boasted oysters are a great supper -dish at American
evening parties, one oyster being as much as any one could eat
at a meal. I think no food is better than those huge American
shell-fish.

It was very cold before I left New York, and some snow
had fallen, which made me very happy to go on board the
Jamaica steamer on the 15th of December. I had a fearful
cold in my head, and was nearly frozen to death, but we got
warmer every day, and I always better as it grew warmer.
We were soon amongst the mysterious festoons of floating

ii Canada and United States 79

gulf-weed. Even the sea-water was warm, and it looked such
a solid black blue, and the weed as gold or amber on it, with
the long streaks of floating white foam over all. A pictur-
esque group of people were on deck when the warmth at last
brought me up. A dark graceful half-caste woman of some
sort, with her head on her still darker husband's shoulder, lay
half asleep, while he was playing an accordion to a group of
small children, all sitting in an admiring circle round them.
A dear old American pair of people were going to spend the
winter in Jamaica, and to return by the Isthmus of Panama
and California in the spring to their home in Connecticut.
They wanted me to go with them : he was eighty, she was
seventy. The winter before they spent in Santa Cruz, but
fancied seeing a fresh island that year. They had been a
great deal on the West Coast of Africa, and I wondered what
for % Had that mild old man ever bought and sold slaves ?
I looked at his feeble old face and began laughing, it seemed
so impossible.

CHAPTEK III

JAMAICA

1871-72

IN the West Indies at last ! Christmas Eve !

We passed Watling's Island and Eum Key, and after
steaming through the crooked island passage we had a most
exquisite sunset, the gold melting into pure blue so suddenly,
and yet so softly, that one could hardly say where the begin-
ning or ending of either colour was. What a contrast in one
week ! All the blankets were taken out of the cabin, and one
sheet was almost unendurable, with both door and windows
open. The next day we were within sight of Cuba, and the
sunset had all the soft colours of a wood-pigeon's breast. I
gave up the greater part of my dinner to enjoy it. The
clouds closed in over it, till at last there was but one opening
like a golden eye with red eyelashes, all the rest different
shades of neutral tint, the land under it very green, while the
sea looked like ink. The approach to Port Eoyal, with its
long spit of sand and mangrove swamp, and then into the
calm bay of Kingston beyond, was intensely exciting. Every
tree was of a new form to me, the grand mountains rising
gradually up to 7000 or 8000 feet beyond, all creased and
crumpled with ins and outs, like brown paper which has been
much used.

I landed entirely alone and friendless, but at once fell into
kind helpful hands. A young Cuban engineer appeared from
the moon or elsewhere, hunted up my luggage, paid my
carriage and porters (for I had only American money), and
saw me safe to the inn. The good brown landlady, having no

CHAP. Ill

Jamaica

other spare room, gave me up her own. It was not a quiet
one, having the family on one side, the dining-room on the
other, and only Venetian shutters between it and the traffic
outside. Apparently all the dirty clothes of the establishment,
as well as the stores, were kept in it, without much method
as to their several arrangements. But the good woman
meant to do her best for me, and she gave me my first mango
to eat. Wasn't it good ! I think no fruit is better, if it
be really good of its kind. In Jamaica the best sort goes
by the name of "Number II,"1 certain seeds having been
brought over from India years ago with numbers attached
and the names lost.

The next morning the landlady took me at daylight to see
the opening of the new market. It was Christmas Day, and
all the negresses went in their gayest ball-dresses ; the trans-
parent white muslin showing the black shoulders and arms
most! comically through. They were covered with pink,
orange, and red satin bows, with artificial flowers, and feathers
in their hair, a basket balanced above full of cakes or fruit. A
band was playing, and all Kingston promenaded up and down.

On our return I found Dr. C., who insisted on carrying
me off to stay. One day Mrs. C. took me a drive up the
Newcastle road ; when it came to an end we walked on, and
I saw a house half hidden amongst the glorious foliage of the
long-deserted botanical gardens of the first settlers, and on
inquiry found I could hire it entirely for four pounds a month.
It had twenty rooms altogether, and offices behind, and had
been a grand place in its day. So I did hire it, and also furni-
ture for one bedroom. I put all but the bed and washstand
in the long outside verandah, which occupied all the front of
the upper floor, open to the lovely views (with occasional
Venetian shutters), and pinned up my sketches on the
opposite wall, keeping a little room at the end to sleep in, and
another locked up for my storeroom. I gave eighteenpence

1 Numbers in catalogue of a collection coming from East Indies to the
Botanical Gardens, Martinique, when Rodney took the ship prisoner. — ED.
VOL. I G

82 Recollections of a Happy Life CHAP.

for a huge bunch of bananas, and hung it up instead of a
chandelier from the roof of the verandah. The man who sold
it to me could barely lift it ; there were more than ninety
bananas on it. They began ripening from the top downwards,
and I ate my way steadily on, till one day the string gave
way, and they came down with a crash and had to be given
to the pigs.

Mrs. C. found me an old black woman, Betsy, to look
after and " do " for me. She used to sit on the stairs or in
the doorway and watch me, eating little odds and ends, and
sleeping between whiles. She prided herself upon being
" one of the Old Style Servants," which meant, I believe, old
enough to have begun life as a slave ; consequently she had a
contempt for all newfangled notions about dress. She wore
one and a turban, and at night untwisted the latter article
and put it on rather differently, that was her whole undress-
ing. A second dress made her sole luggage. There was also
a man attached to the house, old Stewart, a coal-black mortal
with a gray head and tattered old soldier's coat, who put his
hand up to his forehead with a military salute whenever I
looked at him. I gave these old people six shillings a week
to take care of me, and felt as safe there as I do at home,
though there was not a white person living within a mile. I
had a most delicious bath : a little house full of running water,
coming up to my shoulders as I stood in it ; it was the greatest
of luxuries in that climate.

From my verandah or sitting-room I could see up and down
the steep valley covered with trees and woods; higher up
were meadows, and Newcastle 4000 feet above me, my own
height being under a thousand above the sea. The richest
foliage closed quite up to the little terrace on which the house
stood ; bananas, rose-apples J (with their white tassel flowers
and pretty pink young shoots and leaves), the gigantic bread-

1 Eugenio jambos, native of East Indies. Fruit the size of a hen's egg,
rose -seen ted, with the flavour of an apricot

Ill

Jamaica 83

fruit, trumpet-trees (with great white-lined leaves), star-apples
(with brown and gold plush lining to their shiny leaves), the
mahogany-trees (with their pretty terminal cones), mangoes,
custard apples, and endless others, besides a few dates and
cocoanuts. A tangle of all sorts of gay things underneath,
golden-flowered allamandas, bignonias, and ipomoeas over every-
thing, heliotropes, lemon-verbenas, and geraniums from the
long -neglected garden running wild like weeds : over all a
giant cotton- tree quite 200 feet high was within sight,
standing up like a ghost in its winter nakedness against the
forest of evergreen trees, only coloured by the quantities of
orchids, wild pines, and other parasites which had lodged
themselves in its soft bark and branches. Little negro huts
nestled among the " bush " everywhere, and zigzag paths led
in all directions round the house. The mango-trees were just
then covered with pink and yellow flowers, and the daturas,
with their long white bells, bordered every stream. I was in »
a state of ecstasy, and hardly knew what to paint first. The
black people too were very kind, and seemed in character
with the scenery. They were always friendly, and ready for
a chat with "missus." The population seemed enormous,
though all scattered. There was a small valley at the back
of the house which was a marvel of loveliness, bananas,
daturas, and great Caladium esculentum bordering the stream,
with the Ipomata bona nox, passion-flower, and Tacsonia Thun-
bergii over all the trees, giant fern-fronds as high as myself,
and quantities of smaller ferns with young pink and copper-
coloured leaves, as well as the gold and silver varieties. I
painted all day, going out at daylight and not returning until
noon, after which I worked at flowers in the house, as we had
heavy rain most afternoons at that season ; before sunset it
cleared again, and I used to walk up the hill and explore some
new path, returning home in the dark.

I found no difficulty in walking, and could see the plants
far better than when on a pony. I walked one Sunday down

84 Recollections of a Happy Life CHAP.

to the chapel two miles below in the valley : such a walk !
The road in one place went through a gap in the cliffs just
wide enough to let it and the rushing stream through to-
gether. Bridges crossed the stream more than once high
above, with masses of the greenish bamboo feathering over it.
There was no other white person in the church, and a black
parson preached a good sermon, but not his own, and thereby
showed sense.

People always ask how I fed there. I used to buy two
pounds of beef from the soldiers' rations at the guardhouse
a mile or two down the valley every Saturday. The meat
was tough at first, but every day we stewed it up with
fresh vegetables; then the black people brought me eggs
and vegetables, and a woman went once a week into King-
ston and brought me out any shopping I wanted. I was
advised to buy some tins of turtle-soup, and was amused to
find they were made at Glasgow. They are too indolent to
make anything in Jamaica. The Seville oranges rotted on
the ground, and sugar was growing close by, but they made
no marmalade.

After about a month of perfect quiet and incessant paint-
ing at the garden-house, people began to find me out, and the
K.s rode down and made me promise to come to their
cottage for a night. Their home was a thousand feet higher
than mine, with a most lovely view, and tufts of bamboo all
round it, the first large specimens I ever saw • they made me
feel in another world among their rattling, creaking, croaking,
cork-drawing noises. Some of the canes must have been
fifty feet high, thicker than my arm, and full of varied colour.
There was a pretty garden, crammed with strange new plants.
The cysak, which they told me was the sago palm, was very
thriving. They get the sago from the roots of the young
suckers ; it has a number of scarlet nuts half hidden amongst
its furry curly young leaves at the top, so wonderfully packed.
I began a sketch of the bamboos the next morning, and then

Ill

Jamaica 85

went on a mile along the ridge to stay with Captain and Mrs.
H. and the old deaf General Commander-in-Chief, in a bare
tumble-down old house, supported by two weird old cotton-
trees and a sandbox-tree, built on the very edge of the pre-
cipitous wall of the valley.

I was taken to church on horseback the next morning, a
lovely ride of half a mile to the most breezy spot on the south
side of the island, on the very top of the hill. I knew every
one in the church (with a white face), and the collection of
" sorry nags " outside was very remarkable. We strolled up
afterwards to Mrs. B.'s (the rector's wife) famous big tree,
under which all the gossip and scandal of Jamaica were said to
be manufactured every Sunday afternoon, enough to last
through the week ; but it was such a healthy spot, and she
was such a jolly little woman, that I do not believe anything
really spiteful proceeded from that locality. It was . perched
on a perfect pinnacle, and could be seen for scores of miles in
every direction, out at sea as well as on land. The air was
something worth living for ; to breathe was a true pleasure.
Captain Lanyon came up with the Governor's orders that I
was not to go down the hill without coming to stay at Craig-
ton; but I wanted more clothes and paints, so Captain H.
promised me a horse at six the next morning to take me and
bring me back ; but when I got up I found the house like a
tomb, not a creature stirring.

I got out of my window, only a yard above the ground,
and went down to the stable : all asleep too, and the sun
rising so gloriously ! I could not waste time, so took my
painting things and walked off to finish my sketch at the K.s.
They sent me out some tea, and I afterwards walked on down
the hill, among the ebony-trees and aloes, home. I passed one
great mass of the granadilla passion-flower, with its lilac
blossom and huge fruit, which is most delicious, and almost
more than one person can eat at a time. Jamaica people
scoop out all the seeds and juice, and stir it up in a large

86 Recollections of a Happy Life CHAP.

tumbler with ice and sugar, and nothing can be better for late
breakfast, with the thermometer at 91°. The leaves are of a
simple oval form. I found a Kingston doctor and his family
had accepted my offer of rooms for a change, and had come
up, furniture and all, for a week to a corner of my vast
domain. So after a rummage and a bath I went up the hill
again, and old Stewart carried my portmanteau on the top of
his head as far as the little collection of cottages at the foot
of the Craigton mound. Then he called out to ask " one of
those ladies if they would carry this woman's trunk up the
hill," and a lady did it, her woolly head being naturally
padded for the purpose. Their heads are marvellously strong.
When I first came there was a difficulty in getting the iron
frame of my bed together. A carpenter was sent for. He
first pushed at it and kicked it with his foot, then he thumped
at it with his fist, and finally made a bull-like rush at it with
the top of his head, and achieved it.

There was one of the great cotton-trees close to the path,
and I went on zigzag, returning continually to the huge
skeleton tree, and thought I should never get above it. The
native cottages were generally hedged round with scarlet and
double salmon-coloured hibiscus. The little children met one
carrying flowers of it, and did not beg. All the people were
sociable, with very gentle manners. I reached Craigton just
after sunset ; and the views over Kingston Harbour, and Port
Royal stretching out into the sea beyond, were very fine. The
/ house was a mere cottage, but so home-like in its lovely
garden, blazing with red dracsenas, Bignonia venusta, and
poinsettias looking redder in the sunset rays, that I felt at
home at once. The Governor, Sir John Peter Grant, was a
great Scotchman, with a most genial simple manner, a hearty
laugh, and enjoyment of a joke. He was seldom seen till
dinner-time, except sometimes when he came out for a game
of croquet about five o'clock with any people who happened to
collect themselves on the pretty green lawn which was always

Ill

Jamaica 87

open to all the neighbours. Two sheep were kept tethered on
it to nibble the grass and make it fine, and they had learned
to stand on their hind-legs and beg for sugar at tea-time.
After the anarchy succeeding the rebellion, Sir John was per-
suaded to leave Bengal and come to put things straight. He
worked enormously, pulling down old machinery and putting
up new everywhere. He was never tired, and could work
day and night without rest or exercise, trusting no one, and
looking into the minutest details himself. His right-hand and
secretary, Captain Lanyon, had no sinecure, and helped him
gallantly, besides doing all the honours of the house ; for the
Governor hated " company," and never gave himself the least
trouble to be civil to people unless he liked them. He told
me to come and go just as it suited me, and to consider the
house my home. He never took any more notice of me, and
I did as I was told, and felt he had treated me in the way I
liked best. He is always my ideal of a "Governor."

I begged to be let off formal breakfasts, went out after my
cup of tea at sunrise as I did at home, and worked till noon.
My first study was of a slender tree-fern with leaves like lace-
work, rising out of a bank of creeping bracken which carpeted
the ground and ran up all the banks and trees, with a marvel-
lous apple-green hue. The native children used to take plunges
into it as English children do with haycocks, and it was so
elastic that it rose up after them as if nothing had happened.
In the afternoon I could paint in the garden, and had the
benefit of the tea and gossip which went on near me, sitting/
under a huge mango, the parson, his wife, and people coming
up on business from the plains with three or four neighbours
and idle officers from Newcastle. A brother of the Bishop of
Oxford with his pretty daughter stayed a while also at Craig-
ton. Orchids were tied to the trees, and all sorts of lovely
bushes were on the terraces, the Amherstia noUlis, " Mahoe
Yacca" tree, etc. etc., all wonders to be painted. In the
evening Sir John always came into the drawing-room with the

88 Recollections of a Happy Life CHAP.

ladies (like all those who really do work in the tropics, he
drank next to no wine). He used to curl himself up on the
sofa amid a pile of books, kick off his shoes, and forget the
existence of every one else, or he played a game of chess if he
found a partner worth fighting. When he discovered I could
sing he said he would have that other trunk up the hill, even if
it took six men to carry it, so that they might find more songs
to keep my voice going ; and it was a comfort to think I could
give him some pleasure in return for all his kindness.

The view from the dining-room was like att opal : the sea-
line generally lost in a blue haze, the promontories of St.
Augusta, and Port Royal with its long coral reef, stretching
out into it all salmon-coloured, then the blue sea again, Kings-
ton amid its gardens, and the great Vega all rich green, with
one corner of purest ^emerald-green sugar-cane, the whole set
between rich hillsides, with bananas and mangoes full of
flowers, and the beautiful gold-brown star-apple * tree taking
the place in the landscape which the copper-beech does in
England. The mahoe is the hardest and blackest wood in the
island, and its velvety leaves and trumpet-flowers of copper
and brass tints made a fine study : all the flowers seemed so
big. The poinsettias were often a foot across, one passion-
flower covered two large trees, the dracaenas were ten feet
high, the gardenias loaded with sweet flowers. One day the
captain started Agnes Wilberf orce and myself on two horses
with a groom for Newcastle, where he had arranged that Dr.
S. should meet us and show us the famous Fern Walk. It
was a glorious day. We rode up the steep hills straight into
the clouds, and found rain in the great village of barracks, but
we went on in spite of it. The scarlet geraniums and zinnias
of former soldiers' gardens had seeded themselves all about, and
above them we came to patches of wild alpinia, called by the
English ginger and cardamom, with lovely waxy flowers smelling

1 Chrysophyllum Cainito. Fruit the size of a large apple ; tlie inside
divided in two cells, each containing a black seed surrounded by gelatinous
pulp.

Ill

Jamaica 89

like their names. Great branches of Oncidium orchids were
pushing their way through the bushes, and creepers in abund-
ance, huge white cherokee roses, and quantities of begonias.

At last we turned into the forest at the top of the hill, and
rode through the Fern Walk ; it almost took away my breath
with its lovely fairy-like beauty ; the very mist which always
seemed to hang among the trees and plants there made it the
more lovely and mysterious. There were quantities of tree-
ferns, and every other sort of fern, all growing piled on one
another; trees with branches and stems quite covered with them,
and with wild bromeliads and orchids, many of the bromeliads
with rosy centres and flowers coming out of them. A close
waxy pink ivy was running up everything as well as the
\ creeping fern, and many lycopodiums, mosses, and lichens.
\It was like a scene in a pantomime, too good to be real, the
Vee-fern fronds crossing and recrossing each other like net-
work. One saw dozens at one view, their slender stems
draped and hidden by other ferns and creeping things. There
were tall trees above, which seemed to have long fern-like
leaves also hanging from them, when really it was only a large
creeping fern which had found its way over them up to the
very tops. They were most delicious to look at, and, my
horse thought, to eat also, for he risked my life on a narrow
ledge by turning his head to crop the leaves from the bank,
when his hind -legs slipped over the precipice. I said
" Don't," and the Doctor and Agnes laughed, while the good
horse picked his legs up again and went on munching in a
more sensible position. We rode back by a lower fern walk,
still lovelier because it was even damper.

Near Newcastle we found blackberries, furze, straw-
berries, and bracken on the drier hill-tops. Those were the
only plants there the English soldier really loved, because
they reminded him of home. We found it still raining there
(we had been above it at the Fern Walk), so the doctor de-
posited us in two armchairs in his sitting-room, and went off

go Recollections of a Happy Life CHAP.

to see a patient ; we both fell asleep till he returned, and then
went to see the view from Major W.'s arbour, and some
Jamaica plants in his garden.

Two hours were enough of Newcastle talk. I rubbed my
brains till they were sore to find recollections of Corfu,
Quebec, or Gibraltar (which latter place I had only seen from
the terrace at Ronda); but those places seemed the only
ones which interested the " military." It was refreshing to get
home again, and to hear the Governor's honest laugh when
we told him how overworked and bored they all were on that
hill above : he himself never knew what an idle hour meant.

One day the captain called me to the front door to see a
black " lady," who had walked two or three days' journey over
the hills with some appeal to the Governor. It was a funny
scene : the petitioner talked of herself as " a lady who was
used to the best society." (She had a long starched cotton
dress trailing half a yard in the dust.) The captain suggested
she should get some refreshment, which resulted in her being
given a yam to gnaw sitting on the doortsep. I only left
Craigton the day the Governor went down, and walked
down at daylight in my usual way before any one was
moving in the house but the old woman who brought my tea.
I found old Betsy waiting for me alone, and was soon hard at
my usual work again, painting the lovely Alpinia nutans or
shell-flower, one of the most beautiful of tropical flowers.

Gertrude S., the Attorney - General's sister, soon rode
down to see me; she lived only half a mile from Craigton,
and was the person I liked best in Jamaica. As a young girl
she had been taken out with her brothers and mother by a
stepfather to Australia, where she had had no so-called
"education," but had ridden wild horses and driven in the
cattle with her brothers; had helped her mother to cook,
wash, make the clothes, and salt down the meat; and
till seventeen she could barely read ; then her mother's
health broke down, and she accompanied her back to England,

Ill

Jamaica 9 1

nursed her through a long illness, and educated herself. Her
eldest brother soon took great honours at the Bar, and was
sent for by the Governor to help him in starting the new
Constitution of Jamaica. I never knew a more charming
brother and sister! so entirely happy together, and helpful
to one another. Gertrude had taught herself German, French,
and Italian in those few years, and still read much, though
she did all the finer kinds of cooking with her own hands, and
saw her horse and cow fed regularly. She rode like Di
Vernon, and shocked the conventionalities of the country by
taking no groom with her. No one more thoroughly understood
the management of a horse. She had a noble face and figure,
with beautiful expressive dark eyes, and was a most perfect
gentlewoman in spite of her rough training; another of the
many examples I have known that a really distinguished
woman needs no colleges or "higher education" lectures.
Her brother was witty and bright, and when he went into the
Governor's room at Craigton we were sure to hear the great
laugh come rolling out over and over again. Three years
later these dear people both died in the same hour, of yellow
fever, and a letter to me was the last Gertrude wrote, telling
how she and her brother had been nursing the master of the
new college, who had come up for his Christmas holiday
to them bringing yellow fever : he was better, and was on
his way home, and I must come back with him and pay them
a visit. The next day I read a telegram in the papers :
"Attorney -General of Jamaica dead of yellow fever, sister
dead also." It was too terrible ! This is a long story, but 1
could not think of my friend without her curious history :
her life was short, but I think a happy one, for she was
always busy, and used to sing over her work, making all near
her happy too. We took to one another at once with our
whole hearts, and I well remember that afternoon when she
rode down the hill to see me, and I walked nearly home with her
afterwards, her horse following like a dog without any leading.

92 Recollections of a Happy Life CHAP.

Some of the wild fruits were very good, though the English
seldom eat them. The " soursop," or custard-apple,1 was an espe-
cial favourite of mine ; it was a green horny heart-shaped thing
growing close to the stem of the tree, with a creamy pulp and
black seeds, and an acid pineapple flavour. The avocado pear
too was good as a salad ; it looked like a pear, only sometimes
it was purple as well as green, and had a large seed inside
but the white part had the consistency of a very ripe pear
without the slightest taste. I used to wander up the hill-
paths behind the house in the evening and make friends with
the logwood-tree, just then covered with yellow flowers : the
anotha with pink or pearl -coloured buds and wonderfully
packed crimson seeds in husks like sweet chestnuts wide open.
One could hold these prickly shells upside down and shake
them and the seeds never shook out, the prickles being
curved over their surface, so that they were secured as with
a network. I passed one evening through a cleft in the rocks
so narrow I could touch them with either hand ; they were
covered with a scarlet lichen, pretty green and purple orchids
growing among the moss. The allspice -trees were showing
their white flower-buds, and the leaves were very sweet when
crushed. I met a hideous old black woman, who told me
she was Stewart's wife, a fact I knew before. I asked her
if I could get a view of the sea higher up? "Oh dear
no, no see sea, that very long way, very bad road." Five
minutes more took me to the top, with a glorious view of
the sea: why did she tell such lies'? A nice lad up there
gave me some peas to eat which he picked off a most
unlikely -looking tree, and showed me the Cassava mandioca
plant. Then I walked through a field of lovely waving
green sugar-cane from which they make the coarsest sugar,
nearly black, sending it to England to be refined and made
into white. Nature has done everything, man nothing, for
that beautiful island.

1 Anona muricata.

Ill

Jamaica 93

There was a long ant-tunnel up and down my house and
along the fence, but I found no outlet at either end : I broke
it in several places and caused a great commotion among the
ants ; the next day it was mended. Near the house was an
assembly I disliked much more than the ants, they called
themselves revivalists, and used to howl and talk unknown
tongues and foam at the mouth for hours together ; sometimes
it lasted all night, and Betsy and old Stewart used to go off
together to see them, leaving me alone in my big house with
the silvery banana leaves flapping against the shutters, the
fireflies darting, and the glow-worms crawling all round, the
crickets and frogs also having a revival and rivalling the
bipeds in the noise they made, with probably more sense and
meaning too in what they said to one another. I used to
sit on the verandah writing, reading, and enjoying all these
things, and never for an instant had the slightest fear ; but I
did not like the revival people any more than I do the so-
called spiritualists of fashionable life, for they are both untrue
and getting money on false pretences. Once I passed the
camp as a man was preaching : he said, " A stranger is among
us, if she will join us, we will bless her," but she didn't, and
wondered if he cursed her ? When I told the Governor about
these things, he said he had no more right to prevent their
amusing themselves in that way than he had to stop the white
people from giving balls and keeping polkas and waltzes going
till the small hours of the morning, preventing all near
neighbours from sleeping ; and that seemed just.

The principal palms on the hills were the cabbage, the
young shoot of which is eaten boiled, for which the poor tree is
killed; the "maccafoot" and the "groo-groo," whose great
seeds take a high polish, and look like onyx stones in a
bracelet: the mahogany-cones open in four leaves, and the
seeds inside are packed like French bonbons in lace-paper. I
was always finding fresh wonders* The sea-cucumber, a gourd
which grew near the shore, had the most wonderful mat or

94 Recollections of a Happy Life CHAP.

skeleton sponge rolled up inside, which the natives used as a
scrubbing-brush. The delicious star-apple got ripe, and was
filled with blancmange flavoured with black currants.

My old American fellow-passengers came up one day, and
I gave them a feast of fruits and made them very happy on
my verandah. Then I went down to the plain half-way
towards Kingston, to stay three days with the banker Mr. M.
and his wife. Mrs. M. had a curious collection of odd pearls
in an old patch-box. The pink pearl was only found in the
great conch shell ; only one in a shell, and none in most. It
seemed a great sacrifice to break up such a noble shell for the
chance of finding one little dot of a pearl. She had also a
most beautiful gold-coloured pearl, and was in despair of ever
matching it so as to make ear-rings. Formerly there were
pearl fisheries near Port Royal, which was the original capital
of the island but being built on a coral reef it was undermined
by the sea, and one day it all tumbled in and was drowned ;
and now in very clear calm weather they say you can still see
the city under the water.

One Sunday morning I walked up to Craigton, and on to
Judge Ker's. I got up my 1800 feet before eight o'clock, and
found his worship in an extra scarecrowish costume gardening.
He was a very odd man, but was one of the people I liked,
so original and honest, it was difficult to listen to his talk
without laughing. His wife was a sister of the Poet Laureate,
but could not live in Jamaica. He said that at last he had
discovered what to do with cheese-parings : he threw them on
the floor, and then the rats came in to eat them, the cat came
in to eat the rats, and so there was no waste.

He lent me his good gray horse, and I rode up to the
church, and asked Mr. B. to get me leave to go and stay at
Clifton Lodge, which he did. The house belonged to a
gentleman who had lost his wife there, and never cared to see
it again ; he did not let it, but lent it for a week at a time to
different people, who wanted a dose of cool air, 5000 feet

Ill

Jamaica 95

above the sea, beyond the lovely fern walk and in the midst
of the finest and oldest coffee-plantations in Jamaica. It was
a charming little well - furnished house, surrounded by a
garden full of large white arums, geraniums, roses, fuchsia
fulgens in great bunches, sweet violets, hibiscus, great pink
and blue lilies, orange - flowers, sweet verbena, gardenias,
heliotrope, and every sweet thing one could wish for.
Opposite was the real Blue Mountain, with clouds rolling up
across it as they do in Switzerland. There was a village just
below, with a great coffee-growing establishment, and bushes
of it for miles on the hillside in front — all pollards, about four
feet high, full of flowers and different coloured berries. It
seemed an ill-regulated shrub ; its berries had not all the same
idea about the time for becoming ripe, and the natives had to
humour them and pick continually. It was a wonderful little
house : I found plate, linen, knives, a clock (going), telescope,
piano (best not to try it I thought), and a nice tidy woman
and family in the yard to get all I wanted. I had brought
old Betsy, and she did holiday and " lady out visiting," as
all maids do when away from their usual homes. She said it
was very cold, and shivered, but I did not find it so, though
blankets and counterpanes on the beds looked as if it might
be sometimes.

A great blue-bottle fly buzzed, and a bird whistled two
notes, scientifically describable as the diminished seventh of
the key of F, an E natural and B flat alternately, always
the same and in perfect tune. A lovely little apple-green
bird with a red spot on his breast also came into the garden,
called the Jamaica Eobin, which burrows a tunnel in the bank
like a kingfisher ; but after going in straight for eight inches
it makes a sudden bend at an acute angle, and thus hides the
actual nest from strangers outside. The Banana-bird, as
yellow as the canary but bigger, and the Doctor humming-
bird, with green breast and two long tail-feathers, used to
dart about the garden in company with his wife, who was, like

96 Recollections of a Happy Life CHAP.

him, minus the tail, and the mocking-bird sang sweetly in
the woods behind, having a vast variety of notes and trills.
What nonsense people have written about the silence of the
tropics ; they only go out at noonday, when the birds have the
sense to take their siestas. If they went out early, as I did,
they would hear every sort of noise and sweet sound ; then
after sunset the crickets and frogs strike up, and a Babel of
other strange talk begins.

I did one great study in the Fern Walk, sitting in my
mackintosh cloak, and bringing it back soaking outside every
day. Then one afternoon a dragoon arrived on horseback
with a letter asking me for a week to Spanish Town Govern-
ment House to meet the S.s only. The balls and heavy parties
being over I could not resist, though sorry to leave the nice
place I was in.

When I got home, I found no donkey had been sent for
my luggage, and old Stewart had gone up the hills with the
house-key in his pocket, so I got in at a window in a very
bad humour, and then had to walk down a mile or more to
tell Boltons the stableman to send up at once for the baggage
and give me a carriage to Spanish Town. After which I
crawled up the hill and in at the window again, and cooked
some eggs a black neighbour gave me in a shallow pan
without a cover, and made some tea, bathed, dressed, and
packed before old Betsy and the things arrived, when I again
started with my portmanteau on the head of penitent Stewart
back to Boltons. I found all the Newcastle officers on
their way down the valley to a dance on board one of the
men - of - war ; carriages were scarce, so I went round by
Kingston, and shared one that far with them. We went at a
great pace down the steep road and across the plain, with its tall
candelabra-cactus hedges, varied by those of JBromelia Pinguin,
a kind of bromeliad, with the centre leaves bright scarlet,
from which lovely pink flowers wrapped in white kid bracts
peeped out, but so hidden by the great rosettes of outer leaves

Ill

Jamaica 9 7

that they are only visible when one is raised on a high horse
or carriage above the hedge.

I reached Spanish Town in the dark, barely in time for
dinner, and enjoyed all the more looking out at my window
the next morning on the lovely convent-like garden below,
full of the richest trees and plants. A tall spathodea-tree was
just opposite, covered with enormous flower-heads, pyramids
of brown leather buds piled up and encircled by a gorgeous
crown of scarlet flowers edged with pure gold. They came
out freshly every morning and fell off at night, making a dark
crimson carpet round the tree. A great waxy portlandia was
trained just underneath it, and cordias with heads as big as
cauliflowers (Robinias, and Petrcea scandens with wonderful
masses of lilac-blue bracts). Larkspurs, with blue and white
flowers and leaves like sandpaper, were in their fullest beauty.
I never saw so many treasures in so small a space. Arches
surrounded it leading to the different rooms of the ground-
floor, where the Governor and his A.D.O. had their office
open to the fresh air of the gardens on either side. When
the day's work was over, Gertrude and I used to go and
sit there too : I still painting in a corner, she and her brother
and friends swinging in hammocks and talking nonsense, till
the great heat was over, and we could go for a ride or drive.
The first morning she took me for a lovely walk down to
the beautiful sandy river-bed, with the bamboos and big tree
branches dipping into the waters, long-legged birds of the
heron or stork kind walking in and out, fishing and pluming
themselves with their long bills, and making their morning
toilettes. There were many curious and grotesque old tree-
trunks down there, with snake-like roots stretching over the
ground, and arched buttresses, from which the floods had
washed away the sand and earth at different times. Graceful
little black children were running in and out of the water,
bathing and splashing one another. Fish, too, were jumping
out of the clear water, which ran rapidly over the golden

VOL. I H

98 Recollections of a Happy Life CHAP.

sand. I went there very often afterwards to sketch, with the
old bloodhound to take care of me ; he used to gallop on in
front till he found some solid yards of shade, where he would
sit waiting till I came up, and then run on to another good
halting-place.

I was told it was nonsense keeping the garden-house any
longer, as I had so many other houses, so I resolved to go over
and give it up.

I went by rail to Kingston over a rich plain of grass-land,
dotted like an English park with magnificent trees, mostly
of the flat-topped rosewood and allied species, passing also
some giant cotton-trees, which adapt themselves to the flat
land by growing in width rather than height : their buttresses
were huge. Mrs. C. gave me breakfast, and arranged all my
affairs for me. She was the universal referee for everybody,
and quite untiring in her kindness. I got a carriage and drove
up to the garden-house, paid off my two old retainers, and
packed up my things. When the coachman refused to bring
them in his carriage, I told him to go home alone and sent
him off, cheered by all the villagers, who hated townspeople,
and carried my things down to Boltons', who gave me horses
which flew like the wind, and took me all the way back to
Spanish Town.

One afternoon we saw the honey taken from some hives
in the garden in a most primitive manner. Three blacks put
nets over their heads and cigars in their mouths, sat on
their heels and hammered at the two dial boxes which repre-
sented hives, till the bees all mounted into the upper box,
leaving the honey in the lower one. The spoil was almost
as good as English honey, but the bees were poor languid
things, like all other imported creatures, and too spiritless
even to sting.

Another day I mounted the Governor's famous old horse
Blunderbuss, and rode out through pretty green lanes to a
crack in the hills full of Broom Palm, growing like tree-

Ill

Jamaica 99

ferns, with fan-shaped leaves on the top of a stem six or eight
feet high : the plant delights in dry ungenial places. We turned
in at a gate and climbed higher and higher through various
fruit-trees, including the sapadilla or naseberry, whose fruit is
about the size of an apple and tastes like a medlar.

King's House was a most inconvenient building, internal
comfort sacrificed to its classical outside, and to a huge ball-
room which took up one wing of two storeys in height. The
piano was there, and when the house was full we used to sit
there as the coolest place. The Governor had a habit of wait-
ing till the second bell rang, and then saying : " God bless
my soul ! I must go and dress." We used to get all sorts of
strange and excellent dishes ; everything seemed new. Fresh
ginger-pudding, tomato toast, fried "ackee"1 mango -stew,
stewed guavas, cocoanut cream and puddings, and many other
things not heard of in Europe, as well as roast turtle and
other strange fish, the former rather unattractive food.

I had one delightful day in the Bog Walk with the
M.S. There is a village half-way up the lovely valley nest-
ling among large bread-fruit trees and cocoanuts, and huge
calabash trees with fruit so large that nets were put over
them to support them. I saw the great aristolochia trailing
over the trees, as evil-smelling as its neighbour the portlandia
was sweet. Tangles of ferns and orchids on every rock, with
the clear river rushing among them, sometimes bounding
between huge rocks, sometimes winding along serenely
between great plumes of feathery bamboo. It was a glorious
four miles of scenery, but too far from Spanish Town to work
in comfortably. The trumpet-trees were lovely there, with
their hollow trunks, branches at right angles, and great
bunches of white-lined horse-chestnut leaves and pink shoots ;
it is one of the most remarkable of all tropical plants. On
the road back we saw a splendid specimen of the " Scotchman
hugging the Creole" — a fig-tree which begins as a parasite
1 Probably the well-known Egyptian and Indian "okery."

ioo Recollections of a Happy Life CHAP.

and gradually envelops the original tree and strangles it to
death. The air was sweet with the yellow-flowered logwood,
another tree was full of clusters of bean-pods, with small red
husks and black berries set in white, which they call " bread
and cheese."

Two days afterwards I packed myself and my trunk into
a two-seated box on wheels, with a flat waterproof top, and
curtains tied up with bits of string. It had two horses at-
tached to it ; one pulled it and one ran beside the one who
pulled. The former fell down and broke its knees at the first
hill, which taught me a useful moral : never work too hard
nor try to do more than your neighbours, or you may break
your knees, which is unbecoming even in a horse ! My driver
was coal-black, and dressed much like an ordinary English
scarecrow, but he was a good fellow. We passed over some
pretty coast scenery, reminding me of parts of the Cornice ;
the sea quite as full of colour. Sometimes we were high
above it, sometimes on the very sand at the edge, fording
several rivers, one of which just made its way in over the floor
of the carriage so as to cool my feet and damp my portman-
teau-cover. The rivers are always bordered by palms, bread-
fruit, and other fine trees. Cocoanuts are very difficult to
draw, being so exceedingly high that unless one gets too far
away to see the detail one cannot get both ends in ; but they
are the noblest of all, and after seeing them one fancies all
other palms untidy and in want of combing.

We passed several sugar-plantations, with factories for
crushing the canes, and groups of coolies about them : they
were great contrasts to the negroes, being so graceful, frank,
and intelligent-looking.

Morant Bay was too tempting to pass, especially as it had
a good inn kept by Miss Burton, a large black lady with most
amiable manners. The house was raised above the village ;
she gave me a nice corner room with a large tub in it — very
acceptable after coming from the mosquitoes of Kingston — and

Ill

Jamaica 101

I began a sketch at once of a great cotton-tree half growing
in the river, with the blue sea beyond, shaded by palms and
bamboos.

After leaving the sea the atmosphere got more and more
like a hot fern-house, till we reached Bath, where the inn was
kept by a decent kind of white woman. It was really hot and
without air ; so I worked at home in slight clothing till four
o'clock, and then walked up two miles of marvellous wood
scenery to the baths, which were slightly sulphurous and very
hot and delicious. Two large nutmegs, male and female, grew
close to them, with the beautiful outer fruit just opening and
showing the nut and the crimson network of mace round it.
The flowers are like those of the arbutus. Lower down bam-
boos were growing in great magnificence, their great curves
of cane arching overhead and interlacing like some wonderful
Gothic crypt. Large marrow-fat palms were there too, with
their whole trunks and heads covered with hanging ferns, and
tangled up with creepers. The cabbage-palm was in abund-
ance, with its leaves very much uncombed, and a yard or more
of fleshy green shoots, the flowers and fruit under them, many
of the former being then still folded tight in the green bract
which sticks out at right angles from the stem : to cut open
one of these palm flower-sheaths and shake out the contents
like a tassel of the finest ivory-work was a great pleasure and
never-ending wonder to me. -

The town of Bath consists of one long street of detached
houses, having an avenue down it of alternate cabbage-palms
and Otaheite apples. The old botanical garden had long
since been left to the care of nature; but to my mind no
gardener could have treated it better, for everything grew as
it liked, and the ugly formal paths were almost undiscoverable.
The most gorgeous trees were tangled up with splendid climb-
ing plants, all seeding and flowering luxuriantly ; the yellow
fruit of the gamboge strewed the ground under them, and the
screw-pine rested on its stilted roots, over which hoya plants

IO2 Recollections of a Happy Life CHAP.

were twining, covered with their sweet star-flowers. I
longed for some one to tell me the names of many other
plants which I have since learned to know in their native
lands ; but it was delightful to have time to study them and
not feel hurried.

I asked why I saw no snakes, and was told they had all gone
up into the trees to drink out of the wild bromeliads ! Those
pretty parasites often held quite a pint of water in the cornu-
copias which form their centres, as I found to my cost one day
when bending one down to look at its flower, and it emptied
its contents up my sleeve. I drove into the more open country
in the dusk, and saw a large acacia-leaved tree full of deep
pink flowers and shaking leaves, and was told " Thorley's food
for cattle " was made from it ; the natives called it the guanga-
tree. I saw the two marenga-trees, from the berries of which
the oil of Ben used by watchmakers is pressed ; they are both
very sweet, especially the one with a lilac flower which they
call Jamaica lilac. The chocolate plant is also much culti-
vated at Bath : it has large leaves which rustle like paper
when touched; the younger ones are of all sorts of tender
tints, from pink to yellow; its tiny flowers and huge pods
hang directly from the trunk and branches under the leaves,
and the pods are coloured, according to their degree of ripe-
ness, from green to purple, red, or orange. The flowers, small
bunches of gray stars about the size of a fourpenny piece,
are scarcely visible close to the bark of the tree. The nuts
are buried in a rather acid white pulp in rows inside
the pod.

A mill had lately been established near Bath for the
purpose of crushing the graceful bamboos and making a coarse
kind of paper from them ; this will soon rob the place of its
principal beauty, but no one cares, as few strangers ever make
their way to Bath.

The road eastward was very lovely, making short cuts from
one beautiful bay to another, passing many little landlocked

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Jamaica 103

harbours of the very deepest blue, with cocoanuts fringing the
very edge of the sea, and grotesque rocks hollowed out by
the waves underneath, hung with leaves of maidenhair a foot
long. We passed through rivers deep enough to oblige me to
put my feet as well as my trunk on the seat (the floor of the
buggy had holes drilled in it on purpose to let the water
through). We rested during the mid-day heat at Manchineal,
where I sat in the doorway to draw a palm, and the fattest
hostess I ever saw sat beside me, cutting up guavas into a pot
to make jelly of, while her little boy of four cracked Palma-
Christi berries with his teeth preparatory to making castor-
oil. The mother gave me some pretty shells as a keepsake,
and white Frangipani flowers to smell (Plumeria speciosa).
We passed long lines of its trees loaded with the sweet waxy
flowers ; they open before the leaves appear, and a caterpillar
comes with them and eats them all off at once. We saw
quantities of the creature gorging afterwards, about three
inches long, black, with a red patch on his head.

We did not reach Port Antonio till after sunset, so many
attractive things had tempted me to linger and sketch. The
hotel was full, but they gave me a room out, in the house of a
very beautiful brown lady. During the night the rats came and
ate holes in my boots, which were very precious and not easily
replaced, so I always put them on the top of the water-jug
during the rest of my stay on the island. Port Antonio looked
quite an important place from the hills above, where some
friends of my hostess kindly allowed me to sit and paint it in
its cocoanut setting. They gave us glasses of " matrimony,"
a delicious compound made of star-apple sugar and the juice
of Seville oranges, like strawberry cream. It was very lovely,
but airless ; on the north side of Jamaica there were none
of the refreshing sea breezes which made the Kingston side
bearable.

My next resting-place was at Mr. E.'s, where I stayed a
week. His home was perched on a rock like a fortress ; one

IO4 Recollections of a Happy Life CHAP.

could see miles of cocoanuts on one side and of sugar on the
other. The mountains came down close behind it, over which
twenty miles of rough riding road could take one to New-
castle, and a very beautiful road it must have been. Thirty
cocoanuts were used for drinking every day in that house.
When one asked for water one heard a chopping, and a glass
of cocoanut water was brought as a matter of course ; but it
used to hurt my economical feelings to see the way all the
precious fibre and husk were wasted. Mr. E. had a large sugar
farm, and enough to do — he was out from sunrise to sunset.
At certain hours he waited below in his office to receive com-
plaints, and made a rule he would not be bothered at home ;
so one evening when a lot of negroes came wanting to " peaky
Massa," he told them to be off, and when they would not go
he called the dogs (who were fast chained), and the way they
all ran down the hill was an odd sight. Those bloodhounds
have a hereditary dislike to a black, and though they no longer
have slaves to hunt, are very useful as guardians to white
houses, as no blacks will come near them if they know the
dogs are loose.

The sugar-canes grew here magnificently, planted sufficiently
wide apart to allow a plough to be worked between the rows.
They threw up from fifty to eighty canes in one bunch, and
were often fourteen feet high. Bats are their chief enemies,
gnawing the cane near the ground so that it falls and dies.
A penny was offered for every dead rat, and often 1000 were
killed in one week. The governor had introduced the mon-
goose from India to eat the rats, but they preferred chickens,
and rather liked sugar too, so were, on the whole (like most
imported creatures), more harmful than beneficial. Cocoanuts
sold for ,£3 : 10s. a thousand, a single tree often yielding one
hundred in a year.

We stopped near the house of an old black man who hates
blacks and will only speak to whites ; he had a lovely garden
full of rare flowers, and he came out and gave us a huge purple

Ill

Jamaica 105

lily and a branch of double hibiscus. The dogs drove out a
large land-crab from under my bed one night, walking side-
ways like an ordinary sea-crab : he was black, and as big as
my hand, and I ate him afterwards for supper, all minced up
in his own shell. Those creatures generally live on land, but
at certain seasons go off to lay their eggs on the edge of the
sea, and then nothing stops them ; they go in a given straight
line over everything that comes in the way. Two African
niggers came one day to sell some " Obeah " or charm-sticks,
and sat down in the verandah to finish and polish them, and
Mr. E. made them talk. They had been taken by the
Spaniards for slaves, but were retaken by the English before
they got to Cuba. They had worked hard/and now they had
land of their own, ten miles off, on which they lived. They
made twelve shillings a week each by carving those sticks for
charms against the Obeah people, with "plenty snake and
toadie on them." The men were very intelligent, and had
the greatest contempt for " them Jamaica Creole people. Dey
work ! Dem no }ave tame teem in dem for work what we
'ave ! Dem lazy brute nigger ! " When asked if they were
married, and why not, they said : "Me not marry dis lazy
brute Jamaica Creole girl, Governor send bring good nice
African girl over me marry drekly." It was suggested he
might find a yellow girl : " Yaller girl ! me no marry yaller
girl, she got all de brute lazy lying Jamaica nigger, and all
de craft and dishonesty of Jamaica white too, she too cheap
for me ! "

One of the amusements at dinner was to play with a kind
of small cockchafer, no bigger than an English house-fly, but
so strong that he would carry a wine-glass on his back easily
across the table. Two or three used to be set to run races in
that way, and one of them once carried a small salt-cellar full
of salt in the same way. The next house I stopped at was
over another bay on a high hill-top, with most exquisite sea
and land views over a park-like country, with groups of richest

io6 Recollections of a Happy Life CHAP.

trees and palms ; but they blew about too much to paint with
comfort.

My host was one of the largest growers and makers of
sugar, and managed seven other estates besides his own. His
wife was a very nice woman. There were enormous parties
of coolies working in the plain below, the women loaded with
bangles and nose-rings, picturesque and apparently happy, but
looking forward to their return to India just as our people
thought of returning to England ; no good people wanted to
stay in poor Jamaica, even Mr. W. talked of ending his days
on his estate in Cumberland (how cold he would be !). One
evening he took me for a ride with his two small children
(also on big horses) up to the estates of Lord Howard de
Walden, through the richest meadows dotted with large
clumps of bamboos and a clear river winding through them.
The mountains which surrounded these broad meadows were
terraced naturally, and covered with guinea-grass, on which
the horses principally feed ; it had been imported from India
with the Coolies and Mongeese : above the guinea-grass rose
the virgin forest full of valuable timber trees. Once a huge
bamboo cane cracked and fell across the road just before we
reached it ; it would have killed us probably if it had fallen a
few minutes later : they constantly fall in this way in the sun,
if left too long without cutting.

I went over the sugar manufactories and saw the great
steam crusher at work, the green cane going in at one end and
coming out a mere flat dry shell, which after being exposed
for a day or two to the sun's rays becomes capital fuel for the
engine : the great pans and gutters were all kept very clean.
We were given some delicious sugar-candy to eat, and also
tamarinds preserved in sugar, I saw the rum made and
coloured with burnt sugar, and was told that its price de-
pended more on the colour being good than on anything
else.

In the afternoon we were climbing the 800 feet of

Ill

Jamaica 107

steep park-like road up to Shaw Park, the very gem of all
Jamaica, where I was received with the heartiest of welcomes
by Mrs. S. and her wild family. The house stood on a wide
terrace of smooth green turf; wooded hills rose behind it; real
forests of grand timber trees — teak, cedar, fiddle-wood, and
astic, cocoanuts and cabbage-palms — came close to it ; and on
one side was a gully with masses of bananas and ferns, and a
large fallen tree to act as a bridge over the stream, with a
washerwoman in bare legs always ready to hand one across.
That tree arched like the bridge on a willow-pattern plate, and
always gave me a fit of nerves, though I bit my lip and said
nothing. The stream was so deep below that when the wading
woman held her hand above her head it merely reached my
elbow, and I thought I should like to go back when half-way
over, but had to go on, as there was no room to turn. The
hills on the south, and the slopes up to the park from the sea,
were covered with pimento, allspice, and orange -trees; the
former, covered with white feathery flowers, scented the whole
air ; the latter had lately been stripped, and the fruit sent off to
New Orleans by sea. But the glory of the view was to the
north. From the edge of the small table of green a river
tumbled past the house and over the hillside in endless cas-
cades ; one could watch it dancing down among extraordinary
greenery to the sea. At one place, about one hundred yards
below, a bath had been made some twenty or thirty yards in
diameter, shaded all round with bananas, and a small dressing-
shed under them; a perfectly ideal bath, which seemed too
good for mortals.

The air was always fresh at Shaw Park, but there was
little shade just round the house, as the trees had been cut
away to make places for drying the spice — great floors of
cement side by side covering as much space as a house. One
tree yielded eleven shillings' worth of fruit in good seasons.
The bay below was fringed with cocoanuts, and was very
shallow : a long reef of coral separated its glassy water from

io8 Recollections of a Happy Life CHAP.

the ruffled sea beyond ; the white sand and corals coloured it
with the purest tints — green, blue, and rosy lilac. The house
was surrounded by cows, pigs, goats, turkeys, chickens, all
feeding where and how they liked. Every one was welcome
to come or go in their own fashion ; neighbours continually
dropped in from every direction, unsaddling their horses and
turning them loose among the other odd animals to feed and
roll. All called Mrs. S. " Mother," and seemed on the most
intimate terms with the rest. If the bedrooms were all full,
there were drawing-room sofas or hammocks in the verandah
for them. Some arrived in the night, and did not come
in until the next morning \ but all seemed welcome in that
primitive establishment. Few of these young men were
burdened with much education.

Mr. S. lived on another property, and hardly ever came to
see his family ; but he and his wife wrote to one another every
day. The cocoanuts near the house' were sixty or seventy
feet high, and had notches cut in them all the way up the
trunk, into which the negroes put their great toes, and ran up
like monkeys with the help of their hands. The butler was
sent up one day ; he flung down about three dozen nuts off
one tree, and then came down, sat on the ground and chopped
them open, and we all had a feast round them, he supplying
us also with spoons, which he cut from the shell at the same
time as fast as possible. The rest of the nuts were cut open
and left for the fowls and pigs to finish without spoons. One
tree will give one hundred and fifty in a year. Those fresh-
cut spoons stained our dresses and hands ; but there was a
tree close to the house called the Blimbing, whose juice took
out all stains ; the fruit was about the size of a date, and hung
close to the trunk or branches of the tree, with tiny bunches
of red flowers. Many tropical fruits grow in that same way
out of the bark of the tree, including the cocoa and jack
fruit.

There were some curious lizards sunning themselves on

Ill

Jamaica 109

the walls, with green heads, reddish tails, and a sort of
flapping lung-apparatus outside, lined with orange, like a leaf
of Austrian briar. On our way down to St. Anne's we passed
a dead cow, who had gone to drink in the heat of the day
(the cow was a fool) and had dropped down dead, and the
John-crows were eating it. Those birds were a great blessing,
but most hateful to look at ; they used to sit digesting in rows
on the branches of a dead cotton-tree, with their wings spread
out to dry in the sun like the eagles on German soldiers'
helmets, and they looked most uncanny. The fireflies were a
sight to see, particularly the large one with two green lanterns
on its forehead and one red one on its tail ; they were so
bright that if half-a-dozen were put into a bottle one could
read by the light they gave.

There was a small black imp called Ida — its mother had
been with Mrs. S. as a child, so this was the pet of the house ;
though only half-witted, it ran in and out with as much
freedom as the dogs, was supernaturally solemn, and when
told to dance or laugh made hideous faces and antics, but
showed no natural merriment of any sort. It liked riding on
horseback, and was not averse to strong spirits, and some of
the wild boys made it tipsy with rum. Poor solemn little
atom, it was more hideous than ever then. Eum is the curse
of the country, and in that house a large jug of it mixed with
water was always on the side-table, being emptied and refilled
all day, ruining the health of all those poor boys in the
stifling climate.

One night while at dinner we heard a great screeching of
hens and cocks ; a black man was sent out to see if it was a
snake, and soon returned breathless: "Him bery big yaller
one, him wait for Massa Jim, come kill him." We all jumped
up in a great commotion. Jim seized a great old sword from
the wall, I headed the party, and we found that the niggers
had driven the snake up into a tree after it had killed one
chicken and nearly caught the old hen. And now the black

1 10 Recollections of a Happy Life CHAP.

people were dancing round and round the tree, and singing
out : " heh ! heh ! him bery big," at the tops of their voices to
keep him up there. Jim quietly pushed his way through the
ring, climbed up the tree, and after a St. George and the
dragon fight cut off the snake's head, the big beast hissing
and spitting at him to the last. The butler brought the great
body in wound round and round a branch six feet long, and as
thick as my arm ; they said his wife would be sure to come to
look for him the next night.

One afternoon they took me for a wonderful gallop over
some twelve miles of rough forest, meadow, and road, fording
rushing rivers and limestone springs, a party of nine of the
wildest young people on the face of the globe, trying to
frighten me if they could ; but they had mounted me on a
strong sensible old hunter, and I just let her choose her way
and have her head free, and enjoyed the scramble as much as
they did. One place they took me to was a perfect fairy hall,
with the clearest emerald-green water, trees with bunches of
glossy leaves two feet long, and stalactites piled up fantastic-
ally against them ; the leaves of these trees stung like nettles,
and the stems grew straight out of the stalactites and water :
all those springs come out close to the scar's edge, and are
soon lost in it. The road along the coast to St. Anne's was
shaded by bread-fruit and mammee-trees ; the Brouglitonia san-
guinea orchid was hanging like a string of rubies from the
rocks among the fresh green ferns. I was sorely tempted to
take a small vacant house there called Eden Bower for £3 a
month, with endless cocoanuts and grass for the horses, and
enough allspice to pay my rent (fever also in plenty).

Prudence, however, drove me back to the civilised side of
the island over the Monte Diabolo. Ascending by the very
ferniest gully I ever saw, where the banana leaves were
absolutely unbroken by any wind, we came to a kind of
alpine scenery — a wide waving table-land of grass with trees
Dotted about it, oranges, allspice, and different timber trees

Ill

Jamaica 1 1 1

hung with orchids, but not in flower. They were harvesting
the oranges in one place in the usual way when the "Massa"
or " Busha " is not by, that is, sitting in groups under the
trees and eating them. Jim had spent the last week riding
about seeing that that was not done, and had sent off 5000
during that week : only making ten shillings a thousand
(and 1100 go to make a thousand), it seemed hardly worth
the trouble. I stayed a night at Linstead, a pretty village at
the head of the famous Bog Walk, and the next day drove all
the way through Spanish Town, with its big deserted Queen's
House, to Kingston, and climbed the hill to Bermuda Mount
to stay with Gertrude S. and her brother the Attorney-
General.

It was delightful to be with such people again — people
who read and thought, and enjoyed a joke too, and were
never idle. We were very happy together; though the
summer heat prevented me from working out of doors, I
always found abundance of flowers to paint in the cool
verandah. In the evenings Gertrude and I took long rides
or walks about those lovely hills ; we often had orders to
drive with the Governor when her brother could not come
home, and used to walk home by moonlight accompanied
by the great bloodhound, who divided his time between
the two houses equally. On those nights I had a good sight
of the beautiful night-flowering lily, with a pink edge, which
was wide open; but as soon as the sun had thoroughly
risen its head hung like a windless standard. The moon-
light looks whiter on the smooth wet surface of the
banana leaves; no native will go near them then for fear
of " Duppies."

1872.— On the 24th of May Gertrude took me on board
the Cuban — a roomy ship, with delightful deck cabins, and a
jolly captain. We touched at three of the harbours of
Hayti, with fine hills wooded to their very tops. At Port
au Prince Mr. St. John, our charge d'affaires, came and

H2 Recollections of a Happy Life CHAP, m

paid me a visit on board for a couple of hours, and
told us much that \vas funny of the Black Eepublic, and
of its army, which wore the lids of sardine -boxes for
epaulets.

On the 16th of June we landed at Liverpool, and two days
after I was at home.

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CHAPTER IV

BRAZIL

1872-73

FOR the next two months I enjoyed the society of my friends
in London, and then began to think of carrying out my
original plan of going to Brazil, to continue the collection
of studies of tropical plants which I had begun in Jamaica. \

1872. — I started in the Neva Royal Mail Ship on the 9th
of August with a letter from Mr. R. Gr. to the captain. I had
a most comfortable cabin, quite a little room, with a square
window, and the voyage was most enjoyable. Lisbon was our
first halt, which we reached on the 13th at sunset ; the entrance
to the harbour is striking, with the semi-Moorish tower and
convent of Bela in the foreground ; the domes and tall houses
of the city gave me a much grander idea of the place than it
deserved when investigated nearer : on the 19th we stopped
to coal at St. Vincent. I did not land on that treeless island,
which looked like a great cinder itself ; but the boats which
surrounded the ships were full of pretty things from Madeira,
baskets and inlaid boxes, feather-flowers and fine cobwebby
knitting, as well as monkeys and love-birds from the coast of
Africa.

On the 28th of August 1872 we cast anchor at daylight off
Pernambuco, and I saw the long reef with its lighthouse and
guardian breakers stretching out between us and the land, and
wondered how the crowd of ships with their tall masts ever
got into the harbour. Seen through my glass, the buildings of

VOL. I I

1 14 Recollections of a Happy Life CHAP.

the town looked much like those of any other town, but beyond
were endless groves of cocoanut-trees, showing clearly in what
part of the world we were. "Friend, a walk on shore will do
thee good ; my husband hath work to do there, and where he
goeth I can go, and where I can go thee canst also," said a dear
old Quakeress of New York to me ; so I fetched my umbrella
and prepared to follow the leader of our landing -party (a
Belgian) down the ladder into the boat, but he went too fast
and far, a wave went right over him, and we had to come up
again while he changed all his clothes, for he was completely
soaked. Our next start was more fortunate ; we all watched
till the boat was on the top of the swell and then dropped
ourselves in cleverly one by one. It is often quite impossible
to land at Pernambuco for many days together, and yet in
this stormy sea, which is full of sharks, one sees the native
fishermen floating about on the rudest kind of rafts, like hen-
coops, with their legs in the water. The planks which form
these rafts are so much more under than above the water that
the men seem to sit on the actual waves as one sees them in
the distance, and being black they fear no sharks. Our row
over the surf was easy enough, though the white breakers on
the coral reef looked angry on either side of us. Inside, the
harbour is calm as a millpond, and we soon stood under the
great umbrella-trees in the principal square.

It was Sunday, and the shops were shut with as much
rigour as in Glasgow itself. I saw little to buy but parrots,
oranges, and bananas ; no ladies were about, they were all in
church, and as my Quaker friend had told us nothing should
induce him to take his hat off in those temples of idolatry, we
did not attempt to enter the somewhat tawdry-looking build-
ings. But though the upper class of women was wanting,
there were plenty of negresses in the streets, whose gay-
coloured striped shawls hung over their heads and shoulders
in the most picturesque folds ; and in the suburb gardens we
saw grand palms and other tropical plants new to me. The

Brazil 115

fan-palm of Madagascar was perhaps the most remarkable,
with its long oar-like leaves and stalks wonderfully fitted
together in the old Grecian plait, each stalk forming a perfect
reservoir of pure water, easily tapped from the trunk ; thirsty
travellers had good reason for naming this palm or strelitzia
their friend. The Frangipani-trees were also in great beauty,
covered with yellow or salmon-tinted waxen bunches of sweet-
scented flowers shaped like large azaleas, but as yet almost
leafless. The flowers go on blooming for many weeks, then
come the leaves, and with them a huge black and orange
caterpillar with a red head, which eats them all up in a very
short time ; in spite of this the vitality of the tree is so great
that it soon flowers again. The natives say that the moth
lays its eggs in the very pith of the wood, and that if a bit is
taken as a cutting to any part of the world and a young tree
grown from it, the caterpillar will also grow, and appear in
time to eat up its first attempts at leaves. Ants seem to
abound about Pernambuco, and I noticed that all the rose-
trees or other choice plants in the gardens had a circular
trough of water round them, which I have little doubt is a
protection till the clever little creatures learn to tunnel under
them.

We drove out to the country by " the Bonds " or street
railways which are now established in all the principal towns
of Brazil, and are a great convenience and economy of time
and money. These carriages are drawn by mules, and go
at a great pace ; the sides are open, and a substantial awning
keeps the sun off the roof, so that one cannot well have
cooler quarters at midday, obtaining at the same time a good
sight of the country and its people.

At Bahia we also landed, and after mounting the steep
zigzag to the top of the cliff, had another drive into the
country, which is wild, hilly, and covered with rich forests.
The market was most entertaining, and full of strange pictures.
Huge negresses in low embroidered shirts (tumbling off), a

n 6 Recollections of a Happy Life CHAP.

gaudy skirt, and nothing else except a bright handkerchief
or a few flowers on their heads, were selling screaming parrots,
macaws, and marmosets, gorgeous little birds, monkeys and
other strange animals, including a raccoon with a bushy tail,
and a great green lizard as big as a cat, which they said was
very good to eat. I saw one girl quite covered with crawling
and scratching marmosets; she never moved, but they did
incessantly. One of the children on board bought a very
tiny marmoset, so small that he hollowed out a cocoanut
shell, put some cotton wool in, and used to keep his pet in
it, having cut off the small end to let it in and out ; its tail
was eight inches long and very bushy. The oranges at Bahia
are large and sweet, and they pack all their seeds into a
kind of bag at one end, which renders them particularly easy
to eat ; the piles of this fruit, as well as of melons, tomatoes,
egg-plants of different sorts, and pine-apples, make grand
masses of rich colour, while bunches of sugar-cane, great
whorls of bananas, and heaps of cocoanuts form a fine back-
ground. Lazy people were carried up the steep streets
sitting on chairs in a kind of crazy palanquin, which was
hung on a bent pole and carried on two men's shoulders;
if the passenger were not a fidget he might arrive at the
top of the hill uninjured. We did not try, but tired our-
selves out in the usual British manner on foot, and were not
sorry to get back to the Neva again. It took us in two more
days safely into the beautiful Bay of Rio, which certainly
is the most lovely sea-scape in the world : even Naples and
Palermo must be content to hold a second place to it in
point of natural beauty. I know nothing more trying to
a shy person than landing for the first time among a strange
people and language, I always dread it ; so I asked the good
Belgian merchant to help me, and he gave me into the care
of one of his brothers, who not only landed me in his boat,
but put me into a carriage which took me to the Hotel des
Etrangers at Botofogo, on the outside of the town.

IV

Brazil 1 1 7

I soon felt myself at home in Rio, and in a few days had
a large airy room and dressing-room at the top of the hotel,
with views from the windows which in every changing mood
of the weather were a real pleasure to study ; both the Sugar-
loaf and Corcovado mountains and part of the bay also were
within sight.

The house was wonderfully clean and comfortable, considering
the people who kept it so; an American half-caste woman
acted as chambermaid and did nothing slowly ; a black man
(a slave) did it quicker, and looked as if he enjoyed the
work; he told me, "When you want nothing, call Auguste."

The town of Rio has a great look of its relations in Spain
or Sicily ; the houses so full of colour, the balconies of such
varied form, and the tiled roofs project in the same way,
with highly ornamented and coloured waterspouts and
terminals : the inhabitants have the same love of hanging
out gaudy draperies and bright flowers from their windows
and balconies, with the addition of parrots and monkeys
screaming and scrambling after the passers-by, who are
fortunately generally well out of reach. One day, however,
I saw a tall slave-girl's tray of oranges robbed by a spider-
monkey, as she walked underneath with a well-balanced pyramid
of fruit on her head. The Brazilians are so fond of illumina-
tions that there are permanent gas-pipes bent across their
principal streets; these run perfectly straight from the sea
to the hillside ; the long vistas of flaming arches have a far
finer effect than our isolated stars and cyphers. The shops
in the streets seem very good, but the things are principally
from Europe and exorbitantly dear. Brazil offers to a stranger
few inducements for spending money, except its wonderful
natural curiosities, its gorgeous birds and butterflies ; " Even
its bugs are gems," a Yankee friend remarked to me, and
these latter are set in gold as ornaments with considerable
taste and fineness of workmanship. To me the humming-
birds were the great temptation. M. Bourget, one of Agassiz's

1 1 8 Recollections of a Happy Life CHAP,

late travelling companions, had a rare collection which he
valued at 300 guineas, and I passed many happy mornings
among his treasures hearing him talk of them and of their
habits; but after the first few days I seldom went into
the town.

The mule -cars passed the door of the hotel every ten
minutes, and took me at six o'clock every day to the famous
Botanical Gardens, about four miles off. The whole road is
lovely, skirting the edges of two bays, both like small lakes, to
which one sees no outlet ; the mountains around them are most
strangely formed — on one side generally a sheer precipice, on
the other covered with forests to the very top; and such
forests ! not the woolly-looking woods of Europe, but endless
varieties of form and colour, from the white large-leaved
trumpet-trees to the feathery palms, scarlet coral, and lilac
quaresma-trees. Then the villa gardens along the roadside
were full of rich flowers and fruits and noble trees; at one
place a sort of marsh with masses of Indian bamboo gave the
eyes a pleasant rest after the glaring gaudiness of the gardens.
That drive was always charming and fresh to me, and I wished
the mules had not been in such a hurry ; but they were all
splendid animals, and seemed to enjoy going at full gallop, after
the first little scene of kicking and rearing which they con-
sidered the right thing at starting. They often went too fast,
and would have arrived at the station before the appointed
time if they had not been checked.

The gardens of Botofogo were a never-ending delight to
me ; and, as the good Austrian director allowed me to keep
my easel and other things at his house, I felt quite at home
there, and for some time worked every day and all day under
its shady avenues, only returning at sunset to dine and rest,
far too tired to pay evening visits, and thereby disgusted
some of my kind friends. Of course my first work was to
attempt to make a sketch of the great avenue of royal palms
which has been so often described. It is half a mile long at

Brazil 119

least, and the trees are 100 feet high, though only thirty years
old; they greatly resemble the cabbage-palm of the West Indies,
though less graceful, having the same great green sheaths to
their leaf-stalks, which peel off and drop with the leaves when
ripe ; about five fell in the year, and each left a distinct ring
on the smooth trunk. The base of the trunk was much
swollen out, and looked like a giant bulb. This huge avenue
looked fine from wherever you saw it (and reminded me of
the halls of Karnac). There were grand specimens of other
palms in the gardens : a whole row of the curious Screw-Pine,
with its stilted roots and male and female trees ; rows of
camphor -trees, bamboos, the jack -fruit, with its monstrous
pumpkin-like fruits hanging close to the rough trunks, and
endless other interesting plants and trees. Beyond all rose the
great blue hills. One could mount straight from the gardens
to their woods and hollows, with running water everywhere.
The garden seemed a favourite place for picnics, and tables
and benches were set up under the wide-spreading bamboos
and other trees. One day a most genial party settled near
me, several of whom talked English ; one of them brought me
a saucer of delicious strawberries with sugar and champagne
poured over them ; he said they were not so good as those in
England, but the best in Brazil; they were grown in his
garden and picked by his children. The visitors were not all
so well bred, and once my friend the director flourished his
big stick and gave them his mind in strong German on the
subject of standing between me and the tree I was drawing.

One day I was puzzled at hearing him continually calling
"Pedro" in a coaxing tone of voice ; at last up trotted a tapir,
like a tall pig with a cover to its nose ; he got something he
liked out of the director's pocket, and a good scratch from the
director's stick, and followed us as long as he dared. I found
some difficulty about food for luncheon ; if I put meat into a
tin box it went bad, if I took it in paper the ants ate it up for
me, even eggs they contrived to get into, and at last I came

I2O Recollections of a Happy Life CHAP.

to the conclusion that oranges and bread were the best pro-
visions to take. One day I asked the director if I could get a
cup of coffee at the little inn near the gate. " Gott bewahr ! "
was his answer ; he would not let his daughters even walk in
the road alone among such people. Poor girls, they must have
had a dull life of it ; they were so thoroughly German and
isolated, they had hardly ever been even into Rio. We had
some pleasant scrambles together in the woods and up the
hills ; for they were nice simple girls, full of information about
the plants and other natural curiosities of the neighbourhood.
They collected marvellous caterpillars, — some hairy, some with
the most delicate moss or feather-like horns on their heads
and tails, — and fed them till they turned into the gorgeous
butterflies or moths which abound in these gardens.

After a fortnight's daily work there the weather became
cloudy, and I brought home flowers or fish to work at, my
landlord kindly letting me go with him any morning I liked
to the wonderful market, where the oddest fish were to be
found, and where boat-loads of oranges were landed and sold
all day long on the quay-side.

Almost all the menial work in Rio is done by slaves, either
for their owners or for those their owners hire them out to
serve ; for though laws are passed for the future emancipation
of these slaves, it will be a very gradual process, and full
twenty years will elapse before it is entirely carried out. It
would have been better perhaps if our former law-makers had
not been in such a hurry, and so much led away by the absurd
idea of "a man and a brother." I should like some of the
good housewives at home who believe in this dogma to try
the dear creatures as their only servants. One of my friends
had been settled in Eio nine years with no maid-servant, only
two black men (the lesser evil of the two), and some of her
experiences were amusing. The blacks never kneel (except
on the outside of illustrated tracts), and if they were told to
scrub the floor they brought a pint pot full of water, which

IV

Brazil \ 2 1

they poured over here and there, then put a bit of rag under
their feet and pushed it about till the floor was dry again. If
a black servant were spoken rudely to, or found fault with, he
ran away back to the owner who let him out, and said he
would not stay ; his health would be ruined in that place, and
his owner's property would be thereby injured in value. A
good working man-slave could not be hired for less than .£30
a year, though he might be fed and clothed (in slave fashion)
for threepence a day : a girl for housework got £15 a year
and two suits of clothes, besides sundry presents to herself to
keep her in good-humour, and prevent her from running away
to her real owners. It is a mistake to suppose that slaves are
not well treated; everywhere I have seen them petted as
we pet animals, and they usually went about grinning and
singing.

The ladies in Brazil had the women well taught to em-
broider and make lace, doce, etc. etc. ; they then sent them out
to sell these things for them, which small trading was not looked
upon as in the least infra dig. The embroidery is some of it
very fine, particularly the sort made by pulling out the threads
of fine cambric, or even cotton stuff, and working different
patterns on it; it takes much time, and is very expensive;
this lace is coarse but effective.

At Rio I made my first acquaintance with a very common
inhabitant of the tropics, a large caterpillar, who built himself
first a sort of crinoline of sticks and then covered it with a
thick web ; this dwelling he carried about with him as a snail
does his shell, spinning an outwork of web round a twig of
his pet tree, by which his house hung, leaving him free to put
out three joints of his head, and neck, and to eat up all the
leaves and flowers within his reach ; when the branches were
bare he spun a bit more web up to a higher twig, bit through
the old one, jerked his whole establishment upstairs, and then
commenced eating again. He had a kind of elastic portico to
his house which closed over his head at the slightest noise, his

122 Recollections of a Happy Life CHAP.

house shutting up close to it like a telescope ; and then when
all was quiet again out came his head, down dropped the
building, and the gourmand again set himself to the task of
continual eating. He ate on for some months incessantly,
using his claws to push and pull dainty bits down to him, and
shifting his moorings in a most marvellous way. At last the
sleep of the chrysalis overtook him, and he finally became a
very dowdy moth. Some other caterpillars cover themselves
in a much less artistic way with bits of their favourite leaves
strung on a frame most clumsily, as a child strings paper to
the tail of its kite. These creatures are very quick in their
movements ; I have often seen them cross the room and drag
themselves up my dress and on to my knee in search of a
bunch of rose branches I laid there to tempt them, — in a
wonderfully short space of time.

The lady in whose garden I first found these caterpillars
lived on the hill of Santa Theresa, and, instead of blinds,
had her windows shaded with creeping-plants trained across
and across them. Through the spaces left one could see the
bay of Rio with its endless islands, strange Sugarloaf mountain,
and many of the same odd form seeming to mimic it in the
distance. The quivering haze and blueness of the whole scene
was indescribably lovely, and the little terrace below was
crowded with bright flowers. Daturas, bananas, cypress and
palm-trees gave form to the foreground, whilst the orange
Bignonia venusia, the blue petrsea, bougainvillea, and rhyncho-
spermum climbed over both trees and balustrades in great
masses, the latter helping the gardenias, carnations, and jas-
mines to scent the air almost too deliciously. It was a small
paradise, and though my friend grumbled at the nine long
years of bad health and discomfort she had spent there, she
will miss all this abundant beauty when she returns to foggy
old England.

I spent some days in walking and sketching on the hills
behind the city ; its aqueduct road was a great help to this

IV

Brazil 123

enjoyment, being cut through the real forest about a thousand
feet above the town and sea. A diligence took one half-way up
to it every morning ; the road itself and the grand aqueduct
by its side were made two hundred years ago by the Jesuits,
and the forest trees near it have never been touched, in order
to help the supply of water which is collected there in a great
reservoir. In this neighbourhood I saw many curious sights.
One day six monkeys with long tails and gray whiskers were
chattering in one tree, and allowed me to come up close under-
neath and watch their games through my opera-glass; the
branches they were on were quite as well worth studying as
themselves, loaded as they were with creeping -plants and
grown over with wild bromeliads, orchids, and ferns; these
bromeliads had often the most gorgeous scarlet or crimson spikes
of flowers. The cecropia or trumpet-tree was always the most
conspicuous one in the forest, with its huge white-lined horse-
chestnut-shaped leaves, young pink shoots, and hollow stems,
in which a lazy kind of ant easily found a ready-made house
of many storeys. The most awkward of all animals, the
sloth, also spent his dull life on the branches, slowly eating up
the young shoots and hugging them with his hooked feet,
preferring to hang and sleep head downwards. Some of the
acacia-trees grow in tufts on tall slender stems, and seem to
mimic the tree-ferns with their long feathery fronds, whose
stems were often twenty to thirty feet high. Mahogany,
rosewood, and many less known timber-trees might be studied
there ; the knobby bombax, gray as the lovely butterfly which
haunted them, were planted at the edge of the road in many
places, and under them one got a really solid shade from the sun.
It was the favourite home of many gorgeous butterflies,
and they came so fast and so cleverly that it was no easy task
for a collecting maniac to make up his mind which to try to
catch and which to leave; before the treasure was secured
more came and tempted him to drop the half-caught beauties
for other, perhaps rarer ones, which he would probably miss.

124 Recollections of a Happy Life CHAP.

One happy mortal lived up in this neighbourhood and
collected calmly, with his whole heart and time in the work,
thereby gaining a good livelihood ; he had drawers full of the
different specimens, which were worth a journey to see : alas !
when I went he had just sold the whole collection to the
Imperial Princess, so I kept my money, as well as a most
fascinating occupation for odd hours, which would have gone
if I had, as I intended, done my collecting by deputy. He
lived on a lovely perch just under the Corcovado Crag, with
a glorious view of the city and bay beneath, and a rare fore-
ground of palms and cacti, one huge mamen tree in front of
all, its thick umbrella of leaves supported by great pear-shaped
fruit growing close to the stem. The common snail of Brazil
introduced itself to me on that road; it was as large as a
French roll, and its movements were very dignified. It had a
considerable appetite for green leaves (as I afterwards found
after keeping one as a pet in a foot-pan for a month), and its
eggs were nearly as large as a pigeon's ; the first I met was
taking a walk on the old aqueduct amongst the begonia and
fern-leaves, and moved on at least fifty yards whilst I made a
two hours' sketch.

Of course (again), like all other visitors to Eio, I walked
up to the top of the Corcovado and looked down on the clouds
and peeps of blue sea and mountains seen occasionally through
them, and on the splendid yellow and white amaryllis clinging
to the inaccessible crannies of the rock ; the whole way was a
series of wonders and endless beauties.

On that expedition I met, for the first time, Mr. Gordon
and his daughter, who asked me to come and see them in
Minas Geraes, to which they were returning in about three
weeks. I liked their looks and manner of asking me, and it
seemed a grand opportunity of seeing something of the country,
so I said I would come for a fortnight, at which they laughed,
and with reason, for I stayed eight months !

Meanwhile other kind friends asked me to pay them a visit

IV

Brazil 125

at a house they had taken for sea-bathing on the island of
Pakita. I had already ordered my room at the hotel at
Tignea, so I packed up my bag and carried it on board the
little market-steamer, which took me in two hours across the
bay to Pakita. The whole bay is sprinkled with islands and
boulder-stones — some covered with woods and palms, some
mere piles of dry boulders whose history is a sad puzzle to
wise men. They are of hard granite, and some look as if
they had dropped down violently from a high planet, and
cracked in the process ; others have orchids or aloes growing on
their tops, and the tide level is marked by a small oyster not
bad to eat.

Only two or three of these islands are inhabited, as there is
no fresh water on them. But for this want Pakita, with its
beautiful Indian name, would be the Island of Islands. It is
so full of loveliness, indented as it is with many little creeks of
silvery sand sprinkled with fine shells, the shores edged with
drooping cocoanuts and other graceful trees and palms. There
were about half a dozen villas on the island belonging to
different merchants of Eio, and perhaps a hundred cottages,
whose inhabitants make a poor living by fishing and burning
shells for lime. The little house I stayed in was close to the
edge of the sea, and any of the party who were inclined could
run in and out of the water at any hour of the day, or stroll
over the wooded heights or sands and enjoy the prettiest views
possible with the least possible fatigue, for one could walk all
round the island in less than an hour. After leaving this
enchanted spot I went for a fortnight to Tignea, where the
rains overtook me; but I had abundant work in the com-
fortable room which had been kept for me, painting different
orchids and other flowers, with now and then a ramble in the
hills and forests.

On the 25th of October I sent down my three portmanteaux
in a return-cart drawn by eight oxen, and followed myself the
next day, in pouring rain, to Rio. After some, necessary

126 Recollections of a Happy Life CHAP.

shopping and other business, I crossed the bay and its lovely
islands for Mawa, where a train was waiting to take us over
the marsh to the foot of the Petropolis hills ; in this same
marsh were many fine plants, but the most conspicuous was the
real Egyptian papyrus, growing with even greater vigour than
it does at the source of the Cyane, near Syracuse. Tall white
lilies and scarlet erythrinas also made me long to cry " stop "
as we passed. At last we reached a more healthy-looking
region, and stopped at Reiz da Serra, where I was put into a
carriage with three Brazilians and conveyed up the ten miles
of zigzag road, dragged by four mules, who kept up a con-
tinual trot, the rise of 3000 feet being well graduated. The
mules were changed at a station half-way up, and the short
stoppage gave one time to enjoy the magnificent view, the
great mountains looking like ghosts through the mist and rain,
the few giant trees which had escaped the cutting of the forest
when the road was made, standing out all the grander for the
background being veiled. As we rose higher the sun's last rays
sent a red line through the openings in the clouds, and one or
two of the highest points seemed on fire. From the top the
view back towards Eio is perhaps as fine as anything I had
yet seen, with the exception of its having no snow ; the distant
view of the city, with its two guardian masses of rocky
mountains, as well as the bay full of islands, and the rolling
middle distance shaded by floating clouds, was inexpressibly
beautiful.

Two more miles at full gallop down hill took us to Petropolis,
and I was soon in Mr. Miles's comfortable hotel, and again among
friends, with whom I had a merry English dinner. Then came
two days of rain and cold and loneliness, in which I worked
and walked and soaked and froze, and came to the conclusion
Petropolis was an odious place, a bad imitation of a second-
class German watering-place, with its red roofs, little toy
houses, and big palace in the midst, the river cut and straight-
ened into a ditch, running down the middle of the principal

IV

Brazil 127

street, with fanciful wooden bridges crossing it continually,
and its banks planted with formal trees ; though, when one
came to think and thaw a bit, those very trees were in them-
selves a sight to see : umbrella-trees with their large heart-
shaped leaves and pink fluffy flowers, and araucarias larger
than any in England. My friend Mr. Hinchcliff had written
me minute directions how to find one of his favourite walks,
where he promised I should see ideal tropical tangles. I
paddled through the mud and rain to find, alas ! nothing but
charcoal and ashes remained; some German women added insult
to injury by informing me it was " verboten " to go further
that way, so I returned to my packing in disgust. I was glad
to see the Gordons arrive, and to hear them say they had
taken their and my places in the coach for Juiz de Fora the
next morning. Mrs. Miles took charge of my tin box and
sketching umbrella, which, I may as well say here, is a per-
fectly useless article in the tropics ; when the real unclouded
sun is shining one requires a more solid shade than that of a
gingham umbrella, and it is far too heavy to drag about in a
hot climate, so I was glad to be quit of it.

It rained all night, and was still raining when we packed our-
selves into the coach at six on the morning of the 28th of October,
and four splendid mules, after their usual resistance, started
suddenly at full gallop with the swinging, rattling old vehicle.
A violent jerk brought us to the door of the other inn, and
there our fourth place was filled up by a very important
person in these pages, Antonio Marcus, commonly called the
Baron of Morro la Gloria, who had been for forty years in the
service of St. Joao del Key Mining Company, to whose mines
I was going. This old gentleman generally commanded "The
Troop " which brought the gold up to Rio every two months
at least; he was a great character, full of talk and panto-
mime, either grumbling or joking incessantly, or sometimes
even doing both at once. Mary G. was his ideal of
perfection, and understood how to stroke him the right

128 Recollections of a Happy Life CHAP.

way, so we had a merry journey through the most splendid
scenery.

Such scenery ! High trees draped with bougainvillea to
the very tops, bushes of the same nearer the ground reminding
one of the great rhododendrons in our own shrubberies in May
at home, and of much the same colour, though occasionally
paler and pinker. There were orange -flowered cassia -trees
(whose leaves fold close together at night like the sensitive
plant) and scarlet erythrinas looking like gems among the
masses of rich green; exquisite peeps of the river, winding
below its woody banks or rushing among great stones and
rocks, came upon us, and were gone again with tantalising
rapidity. My friends only laughed when I grumbled at the
mules going so fast; now and then a peaked mountain-top
pierced its way through the clouds for a moment and was
lost again, then came a gray overhanging cliff sprinkled with
bracket-like wild pines spiked with greenish flowers ; the near
banks were hidden by masses of large-leaved ferns and begonias
and arums of many sorts, whose young fresh leaves and fronds
were often tinted with crimson or copper- colour. The wild
agaves too were very odd : having had their poor centre shoots
twisted out, the sap accumulated in the hollow, and a wine
or spirit was made from it; the wretched wounded things,
sending up dwarfish flowers and prickly shoots from their
other joints, formed a strange disagreeable - looking bush,
several of which made a most efficient hedge. Under each
of these flowers a bulb formed, which when ripe dropped and
rooted itself, thus replacing the parent whose life ended at
its birth. Another curious plant here abounded, the marica,
like a lovely blue iris, which flowers and shoots from the
ends of the leaves of the old plant, the leaf being often more
than a yard in length, and weighed down to the ground by
the bunch at its end. When the flower is over, a bulb forms
under it which produces roots ; eventually the connecting
leaf rots off', so that a perfect circle of young plants succeeds

IV

Brazil 129

round the original old one. When in flower the appearance
was very peculiar ; a perfect rosette of bent green leaves and
a circle of delicate blue flowers outside them.

The grand coach road we went over had, of course, en^
couraged emigrants to ' settle near it ; we passed miles of
cultivated ground, and the long rows of tidily trimmed
coffee and corn gave as much pleasure to my companions
as the forest tangles gave to me. We stopped to dine at
Entre Bios ; here we came to the Don Pedro railway, and the
real traffic of our road began.

There was no other way of reaching the rich province of
Minas, or of obtaining its minerals, coffee, sugar, or cotton ;
so from this point we passed a continual stream of mules
or waggons till we got to Juiz de Fora and its most comfort-
able hotel. The last part of the way was lighted by swarms
of fireflies. We were two hours after our time, owing to the
state of the roads and the overloaded coach ; all the baggage
was packed on the top in one high pyramid, and the outside
passengers were clinging to every ledge, the whole machine
swaying from side to side in the most frightful way. The
Baron's head was continually out of the window, shouting
directions to the driver and conductor, who of course knew him
too well to take the slightest notice; they were both great
characters in their way, two German brothers who had driven
over that road ever since it was first made, nearly twenty
years before.

Juiz de Fora is all one monument to the great and good
man who founded it, Senhor Mariano Lages; even the
excellent hotel was designed and built by him, and a college
for agriculture, library, museum, his own pretty villa and
gardens, and the grand road itself, were all made by him
for the good of his country, as well as his own. He did not
live long enough to see them prosper, but pined away after
the death of his favourite daughter ; and his college and other
schemes will soon pine away too, for patriots are not common

VOL. I K

130 Recollections of a Happy Life CHAP.

in his country. His garden was full of treasures, not only of
plants, but of birds and animals ; there was a fence of fifty
yards at least, entirely hung with rare orchids tied together ;
every available tree-branch was also decorated in the same
way, and many of them were covered when we were there
with lovely blossoms of white, lilac, and yellow, mostly very
sweet-scented. There was also a great variety of palms.
I saw one huge candelabra cactus twenty feet in height, and
the air was perfumed with orange and lemon blossoms. The
village itself looked very comfortable, every cottage having its
own luxuriant little garden and shady porch, under which the
fair German women and children sat knitting with their hair
plaited round their heads. Every one said the road to Minas
was impassable from the late heavy rains. We heard of mules
being smothered in the mud, a woman killed in it, etc. ; but
the more I heard the more I determined to see my friends
safely through, if they were willing to be burdened with me ;
besides, people had said in Rio I should never really go, some
had done their best to keep me from going, and one Scotchman
had said I should "not find to paint any in Minas ! "

The first loading of thirty-seven mules is not done in an
hour; everything must be weighed and strengthened and
hung with stout bands of cowhide, balanced well, or the mules
will suffer. When once they are well loaded the things are
numbered, and the operation on subsequent mornings becomes
a much easier and quicker affair. All these arrangements
were our Baron's glory ; he had to think and be responsible
for every little item, and made as much fuss as he possibly
could, getting in and out of a score of terrible rages before
midday. When the rain left off, his temper also cleared, and
we finally started, forming a party which would not have
shone in Hyde Park, but was admirably adapted for riding
through Brazil in the wet season.

First went the loaded mules with their bare-legged black
drivers, then the Baron in the shabbiest of straw hats, any

iv Brazil 131

quantity of worsted comforters, and brown coat and gaiters.
Mr. Gr. on his noble gray mule, his daughter on her pretty
little horse, and myself on Mueda, the steadiest and most
calculating of mules. My dress was as good as any could be
for such riding, namely, a short linsey petticoat and a long
woollen waterproof cloak with sleeves. I had besides a light
silk waterproof rolled up and hung on my pommel for extra
wet hours, and my old black straw hat on my head. Behind
us rode the two grooms — Koberto, the little bright-eyed mulatto
boy, whose duty was always to look after Mary and myself,
and Antonio, Mr. G.'s own particular attendant, in a gorgeous
livery, glazed hat with a cockade on one side, top-boots, and a
decidedly negro face. Alas ! his magnificence soon disappeared ;
his coat was ere long splashed up to his shoulders, and, with
his dear boots, had to be strapped and hung over his saddle,
his trousers tucked up as high as they would go, and he was
wading with the rest in front of us, feeling for holes in a sea
of pea-soup, occasionally not only finding but falling into them,
a wholesome warning to those behind. The road was one
constant succession of holes and traps and pies of mud, often
above the mules' knees, often worn by constant traffic into
ridges like a ploughed field, through which the tired quadru-
peds had to wade, or drag their feet from furrow to furrow
of the sticky, soft, clogging mud. The only real danger was
on the broken bridges, which are made of round logs or
branches laid side by side, and liable to roll apart out of their
places, leaving holes through which the mule's leg easily slips
and breaks, or if the clever creature recovers it he may be
thrown down and roll into the mud bath on either side.
These " corduroy " bridges are constantly occurring, and when
hidden up with mud are very dangerous traps indeed. Mueda
was most careful, and seemed herself to know every inch of
the road, and always to pick the safest places. When the
difficulties began, my friends insisted on my taking the place
of honour after our leader the Baron, whose track Mueda

132 Recollections of a Happy Life CHAP.

followed exactly (except when she had some good reason
of her own for diverging); she seemed to put her feet
into the identical places our leader's mule's feet had been
in, and I believe the others almost always followed her
example.

Every traveller we met delighted in magnifying the horrors
they had passed, and said that as the rain had continued it
was utterly impossible for us to go on; and one party which had
started the day before were actually coming back in despair.
Our progress through all this was slow ; we were obliged to
stop after only 3 J leagues of it, and put up for the night, while
Mr. G. sent on a note to the chief engineer of the province to
ask his help. An answer came the next morning, begging us
not to start too early; he had set fifty men to work, and hoped
to make the road passable by noon, which gave us time to
enjoy and examine our present quarters. It was not a bad
specimen of the ordinary roadside inn or rancio of the country
— a small room with a table and two benches, and an earthen-
ware water-jar with cups to dip into it, standing on a piece of
wood which served for lid, the roof hidden by a mat of
plaited palm leaves, and the floor made of clay taken from the
walls of the great termite ants' nests and pounded down, a
material which in its way is clean, though it does not look so.
Besides this room, with its unglazed window and outer door,
were two smaller rooms, also entered from the outside, and
reached by stepping-stones set in mud ; two beds were in each
— mere wooden frames with a mat stretched over them, and a
sack of well-shaken corn leaves, cotton sheets with embroidered
or lace edges, and a gay painted cover. We took our own
pillows and coloured blankets or rugs, for the nights are often
cold. Near our inn was the shed, under which the men pile
all the luggage and saddles cleverly and tidily, so as to make
a substantial shelter from the wind ; here they sit and sleep
round a good fire, cooking, gossiping, and mending their clothes
or harness, the animals tethered round them, feeding, or being

iv Brazil 133

groomed or shod, till it is time to turn them out to grass for
the night.

Inside the house we fed right well, and as we had much
the same fare everywhere more or less, I will here give our
average rations. For dinner, soup, roast or boiled chicken and
pork, rice prepared somewhat greasily, and Fejao, the staple
food of the country — some English say " very stable, for it is
only fit for horses," but I always liked it ; it resembles the
French haricot, only the bean is black instead of white; in
Brazil it is always eaten with farinha sprinkled over it, a
coarsely-ground flour of either Indian corn or mandioca. Then
we had the country cheese, which was excellent, reminding
me of the " fromage carre" " of Normandy ; this was always
eaten with preserve of some sweet sort known by the general
name of " doce," and followed by the best of coffee — the poorer
the house the better the coffee. In the evening we had tea
and biscuits, or bread and butter ; but these biscuits, as well
as wine and candles, we brought with us ; and after tea a roast
chicken was cut up, rubbed with farinha, and packed in a tin
box for the next day's breakfast or luncheon, though we never
started without a cup of hot coffee and a biscuit — a great secu-
rity against the bad effects of a cold damp morning ride. The
second morning of our journey it rained again, and we sat at
the window watching the different passers-by, as they floundered
about in the mud, with great interest, for our turn was coming
next. There was a particularly bad place opposite our door ;
it probably had been particularly bad for years, and would be
the same for years to come, it having apparently never come
into the head of the landlord to mend it. Perhaps he thought
it stopped people and brought custom to his house, as they
were literally unable to pass his door. One by one we saw the
poor mules go flop into the liquid mud-hole, have their loads
transferred to men's heads, and themselves lifted out by tail
and head, the lifters often replacing them in the hole during
the process. We, however, all got safely over, and were soon

134 Recollections of a Happy Life CHAP.

met by "Beesmark himself," as our Baron called the great
Prussian engineer, a large man with a magnificent white beard
and tall horse, which I believe was once of the same pure
colour. After many compliments and hearty greetings he
took the lead, and we rode round the valley by the steep hill-
sides, so as to avoid the muddy road and marsh, now powdered
with lovely masses of the Franciscea, with its blue and white
blooms. At last we were forced to descend again, and came to
the worst place, from which the travellers had been turned
back the day before. Here men were now at work throwing
on turf and trying to make a causeway. The Graf and Mary
passed over safely, then flop ! in went a young engineer's mule
in front of me, only his neck to be seen above the water,
while his master tumbled cleverly on his feet beyond the
danger, and every one shouted to me to stop, which Mueda
had no objection to do. A big nigger was called up and
ordered to carry me, and I submitted under protest. He had
no sooner got the extra weight (no light one) on his back than
he sank steadily in the spongy ground like a telescope, and
would doubtless have disappeared entirely if I had not
scrambled to my seat again on dear old Mueda, who stood
steady as a rock, and seemed to grin to herself at the idea of
any one but herself having the strength to carry me.

After we had done laughing at this scene I was allowed to
walk over on my own feet from sod to sod, and Mr. G.
followed my example. We afterwards rode on tolerably well
till we got to the small town where we were to breakfast, the
high-street of which was a torrent of mud. All the people
had their heads and elbows out of the windows to see us pass ;
for many of them had not had a walk in the street for a
month ; they would only have tumbled into the pea-soup if
they had attempted it. Our engineer and his party were
lodging here, and after accompanying us a few leagues
farther they turned back to give a few more despairing
looks at the mud, and to tell the people nothing could be

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Brazil 135

done till the wet season was over — a fact they already knew
too well.

Our next night's quarters were worse than the first ; for the
landlord had not been out of his house for a month, and had
not even a sack of corn for our poor tired beasts ; but the
night after that we passed in a fazenda or farmhouse, with a
beautiful green grassy hill behind it, on which the animals did
enjoy themselves, rolling over and over, cleaning their coats,
and eating any quantity of delicious capim grass. This is
almost as good as corn for them, growing in tufts like the
tussock or guinea-grass of India, with a whitish downy leaf
which is extremely sweet, and in the spring-time is covered
with feathery lilac flowers, which give a glowing tint to all the
hillsides. We also enjoyed ourselves, and ceased for the first
time since we started to feel damp, as the dwelling-rooms were
built on the second storey, the lower one being used as stables
and servants' quarters. The family, too, were more civilised
than any of the people we had been with before. The young
daughter of the house delighted to hear about Rio fashions.
She showed us all her finery, and her lace made by her own
hands. Even the poor sick mother from her bed in the corner
seemed to brighten up at having news of the outer world.
She had a most conversational parrot on a perch. All the food
he dropped was eagerly watched for and fought over by five
cats and a dog. They had also the somewhat rare luxury of a
dairy and herd of cows, brought up a great many calves, and
made cheeses with the spare milk, pressing them with their
hands in a primitive manner, with the help of a wooden ring
and a board ; butter they did not attempt.

Near here I first saw the araucaria-trees (A. braziliensis) in
abundance ; it is the most valuable timber of these parts, and
goes by the name of " pine." The heart of it is very hard and
coloured like mahogany ; from this all sorts of fine carvings
can be made ; the outer wood is coloured like the common fir.
This tree has three distinct ages and characters of form : in

136 Recollections of a Happy Life CHAP.

the first it looks a perfect cone ; in the second a barrel with
flat top, getting always flatter as the lower branches drop off,
till in its last stage none but those turning up are left, and it
looks at a distance like a stick with a saucer balanced on the
top. During the first period the branches are more covered with
green ; but as it grows older only the ends are furnished with
bunches of knife-like leaves, and the extremities alone are a
bright fresh green, looking like stars in the distance among
the bare branches and duller old leaves. Its large cone is
wonderfully packed with great wedge-shaped nuts, which are
very good to eat when roasted. These curious trees seldom
grow lower than 3000 feet above the sea.

After crossing the grand pass of Mantiqueira we changed
the general character of vegetation. I saw there masses of
the creeping bamboo, so solid in its greenery that it might
have been almost mowed with a scythe ; also the Taquara
bamboo hanging in exquisite curves, with wheels of delicate
green round its slender stems, reminding me of magnified
mares' tails, and forming arches of 12 to 20 feet in span. I
know nothing in nature more graceful than this plant. Over
the stone fountain which marked the top of the pass was a
palm-tree, three of whose branches were weighted at the end
by the pendent nests of the oriole bird, at least a foot long,
woven cleverly out of the fibre of the palm, and of the para-
site commonly called "Old Man's Beard," which one sees
hanging from the branches and waving in the wind, like masses
of unravelled worsted from some old stocking. I have often
taken hold of the end and pulled it out for yards; then,
on letting it go, it returned again to its crinkly state. This
fountain was a favourite halting-place in fine weather, and
jbhere could be few more inviting places for lingering in.

Every bit of the way was interesting and beautiful ; I never
found the dreary monotony Eio friends had talked about.
Every now and then we came to bits of cultivation, green hills,
and garden grounds. Once I saw a spider as big as a small

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Brazil 137

sparrow with velvety paws; and everywhere were marvellous
webs and nests. How could such a land be dull ? Then we
crossed high table-lands which seemed quite colonised by the
" Jean de Barbe " bird ; every tree was full of their nests —
curious buildings of red clay as big as my head, divided into
two apartments. The birds were flying about near their homes,
and were of the same reddish colour as the nests they lived in.
Roberto climbed a tree and tried to get me one of these nests,
but broke it in the attempt ; it looked like a half-baked and
ill-formed earthenware pot. The ground of this same bleak
region was dotted with the large wigwam -looking establish-
ments of the termite ants, as big as sentry boxes, and with no
visible entrances. The small creatures who make and inhabit
them tunnel their way underground from openings at a con-
siderable distance from the erections themselves, which are
full of cells and passages made of a black sticky substance,
much used by the natives as putty for stopping water-holes
and fuel to heat their ovens ; they also pound it down for the
floors of their houses.

These highlands are frequented by a kind of small ostrich,
about which many strange tales were told. I had often heard
their call— a noise something between a quack and a bark.
They are said to act in concert in many things, to form a large
circle for the purpose of killing snakes, driving them nearer and
nearer till they have them safely hedged in, when they seize
them one by one by their necks and dash them against the
stones till they are dead. They are said also to make sitting
parties, building their nests close together in the ground near
a stream or pool of water, and pulling up a circle of grass
round their little settlements as a precaution against the inevit-
able fires ; they then fill one nest with eggs laid promiscuously
by all the party, then another nest is filled, and so on till all
are full, the birds taking their turns at sitting as soon as each
nest is ready. The reason ostriches manage their domestic
affairs in this peculiar way is that they lay so many eggs that

138 Recollections of a Happy Life CHAP.

the first would be bad before the last was laid if they were to
wait and sit on their own eggs only, like other more orthodox
hens ; so they become true Communists, devoting their energies
to the general good of their kind. When the time comes for
burning the grass (which is the Brazil substitute for manuring
it), the cock-birds are said to walk repeatedly in and out of the
water, shaking themselves over the nests and their surround-
ings, and repeat this operation till all danger is over.

After a long day's ride over these glaring plains, still sticky
and slippery with mud, though the hot sun was shining on it,
we were glad to find really comfortable night-quarters in the
house of a gentleman who prides himself on producing the best
cigarettes in Brazil. They are all rolled up with the greatest
nicety in Indian-corn leaves, and tied together with .coloured
ribbons in pretty little bundles ; the daughters of this house did
them so neatly that report says they were forbidden to marry
or to leave the work on any pretence whatever. We were
received with a most hearty welcome, and lodged in their best
rooms with every luxury — tubs of water, embroidered towels,
and the best of coffee. Our dinner was also sumptuous, and
here, for the first time, we persuaded the master of the house
to sit and dine with us at the head of his own table, a post
which was generally given to me as the greatest stranger.
- We had one dish for which the house is famous — a bowl of
chicken-soup with a huge chicken boiled whole in the middle
of it. There was a piano here, and we sang and played all
we knew for the benefit of our entertainers, whose musical
attainments were as yet very young indeed ; but they formed
a most enthusiastic audience, and the Baron declared, with
tears in his eyes, he could not smoke while I sang. It affected
him so much afterwards that he put the wrong end of his cigar
into his mouth and burned it ; no wonder he cried !

At this point in our journey Mr. G-.'s carriage met us. Such
a carriage ! but if we had been ill I suppose we should have
gladly submitted to its jolting ; it was a sort of double sedan-

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Brazil 139

chair, intended to contain two persons sitting opposite one
another, and hung on two long bamboos, with a mule harnessed
between them before and behind. Persons travelling in these
littieras are very apt to be sea-sick from the swinging motion ;
but I am thankful to say none of us required to go through
this ordeal, and the machine was sent on ahead with the
baggage-mules. The sunshine continued as we rode on over
the high country to Barbacena, the chief town of this district,
beautifully situated on a hill about 4000 feet above the sea,
with fine araucaria and other trees shading its garden slopes^
Two tall churches made a finer show in the distance than they
did near. The horrible paved road up to it was good neither
for man nor beast, and reminded one of North Italy. These
abominations seem a plague common to all Latin nations.
"We were entertained at the house of the agent of " The Com-
pany" most hospitably. I was shown a well -furnished and
perfectly windowless room which I could have, if I liked to
stay and paint flowers and scenery on my return. After
breakfast we went to see the old chemist who was the naturalist
of the neighbourhood. He had many valuable books, curiosities,
and rare orchids, which he took the greatest delight in show-
ing to us ; but his chief pride was in one wretched little cherry-
tree, which, after ten years of watching, had produced one
miserable little brown cherry : he had brought the original
stone from his dear native Belgium, and it reminded him of
home.

The flowers on these high campos were lovely — campanulas
of different tints, peas, mallows, ipomoeas creeping flat on the
ground, some with the most beautiful velvety stalks and
leaves ; many small tigridias, iris, and gladioli, besides all sorts
of sweet herbs. There are many peculiar trees and scrubby
bushes with brown or white linings to their leaves, and the
stems powdered over with the same tints. I have never seen
these elsewhere. When we descended into the greener hollows
and crossed the swollen streams the vegetation became dense

140 Recollections of a Happy Life CHAP.

x*

again, and wonderful in its richness. Gorgeous butterflies
abounded, and seemed to be holding dancing parties on the
gravelly water's edge. Birds, too, chirped and fluttered from
branch to branch, canaries abounded, and small green parrots

' flew screaming across our path. Once I saw a great lizard
nearly a yard long run along the road in front of us, with his
tail held up in the air like a cat ; he was very stupid about
getting out of our way, and we had a good look at him.
Gama was said to be the very worst house on the road, and it
certainly was not what the Yankees call " handsome quarters."
An idiot sat on the doorstep, pigs wallowed in the mud be-
yond ; but the idiot was said " not to be often dangerous," and
the pigs could not get past him into the house, so why should
we mind either of them? Our next quarters made up for
Gama j for they were in a friend's house, with a kind Brazilian
lady and her children, who did all she could to show us hospi-
tality, and came out the next morning before daylight, to give
us our coffee, in her dressing-gown, with her long hair combed
straight down her back ; for we meant to make up for lost time

/ now we neared the end of our journey. Mary had a threaten-
ing of diphtheria, and longed for home and her mother's care ;
so we toiled up and down the high ridge of Morro Preto,
whose white sharp rocks stuck up like bleached bones, and
whose cracks were filled with the brightest red, purple, or
yellow earths. Occasionally there were fantastic earth-pyramids
standing up, balancing balls of harder earth on the top, instead
of stones, as in the Tyrol. . At the top of this ridge I saw
many strange plants for the first time, including the vellozia,
a kind of tree-lily peculiar to these mountains. One of the
varieties was called the Canella de Ema. It had a stem like an
old twisted rope, out of which spring branches of the same, ter-
minating in a bunch of sharp-pointed hard leaves like the yucca;
out of these again come the most delicate, sweet-smelling blue-
gray flowers with yellow centres, much resembling our common
blue crocus in shape. There are many other vellozias, all having

Brazil 141

the same dagger-like leaves ; some send up long stems with
bunches of brown or green flowers.

It was most tantalising to pass all these wonders, but time
was precious and my friend was suffering, and our next night
behind a curtained alcove in an extremely draughty room
after a good day's soaking did not improve her. The third
morning found her voiceless, but she was determined to get
home that night, though it was a full forty miles' ride ; so on
we came, and she bore it bravely. Suddenly a violent dis-
charge of rockets in front warned Mr. Gr. he was coming among
friends, and we stopped to breakfast at the house of a black
man, whose late master had left him his freedom as well as
house and property. There were many bits of curious old
carved furniture here, as well as fine silver-work in the little
chapel, and our host treated us as if he loved us (for a con-si-
der-a-tion). Over the wall round his house were masses of
bright scarlet -flowering euphorbia, from the juice of which
the Indians poison their arrows, and of which the Jews say
the Crown of Thorns was made. The journey was a weary
one ; for we were all anxious about her who was generally the
life of our party, and when we reached the bridge over the
deep river-bed where we were to change mules I thought she
would have been suffocated. Soon, however, the hill of Morro
Yelho came in sight, and, though still far off, her spirits rose
and her troubles grew less in proportion as the distance
shortened. Every house we passed sent off rockets, and one
enthusiastic man pointed his gun straight at Mr. G-., and kept
firing at him as long as he was in sight, fortunately only with
powder. A fearful storm came on, and our waterproofs were
of real use, and brought us in a comparatively dry state to the
house of a very remarkable old lady, Dona Florisabella of
Santa Rita, who hugged us all round in the heartiest way, and
then led us up by a rough ladder to a set of handsome rooms,
which had been frescoed in a most gaudy and reckless manner
with every bright tint of the rainbow.

142 Recollections of a Happy Life CHAP.

The open verandah attracted me at once. From it there was
an exquisite view of the Rio das Velhas, winding through its
wide green valley, surrounded by hills wooded to two -thirds
of their height, and a noble ceiba or silk-cotton tree standing
sentinel by the house, which I afterwards saw covered with
the most lovely pink hibiscus-like flowers — a perfect mass of
colour, looking in the distance like a large old cabbage-rose
against the green hills. Across the river I now saw the pretty
church and village almost hidden in groves of bananas and
palm-trees. Above were the peaks of Morro la Gloria, the
property of our old leader, and from which we gave him his
title. From this view politeness required me to turn at last to
our hostess and her abundant conversation. She was of good
family, and had seen better days ; her children were dispersed
in the world, and had left her to make what she could of a
small property. She had spirit enough to work that or any-
thing else, and her power of talk and pantomime beat even
her rival the Baron's. She wore a once-handsome silk dress,
and a gaudy silk handkerchief bound over her head so as to
hide every trace of hair; but, in spite of the disfiguring
costume, showed remains of great beauty. Soon Mary rushed
out to meet her brother, the clever young engineer. She found
her voice at the same moment ; and we all sat down to a grand
dinner, excepting our hostess, who stood and helped us all,
and woe betide any one who refused to eat or drink what she
offered them. After she had filled all our plates she seized the
drumstick of a chicken in one hand and a bit of bread in the
other and took alternate bites at them, after which she washed
her hands at a side -table, and began carving again, drinking
all our healths separately, and making speeches to each as she
did it. One of her dishes had a duck in it sitting upright as
if it were swimming, with a lime in its mouth. Her "doce"
were excellent, particularly a kind of sweet pudding made
with a great deal of cheese in it.

It was no easy task to get away from this hospitable lady,

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Brazil 143

but at last we started, and about a mile farther crossed the
great bridge over the river, and were on " The Company's "
property. About twenty of its officers were waiting to receive
us, all mounted on mules, and there was a general hand-
shaking, most of the party being English. The Baron was low-
spirited, for he was no longer our leader, and his work was
over. Mr. G. and I led the way and jogged over the muddy
road up hill and down to the village of Congonhas, when the
rockets and firing and hand-clasping began in good earnest,
amid torrents of rain. The mules became quite unmanage-
able, either from the noise or from the nearness of their well-
loved stables, and we all took to galloping violently up and
down the steep paved streets, which were now torrents of
liquid mud — such a clattering, splashing, umbrella-grinding
procession ! Mr. G.'s mule objected to a rocket-stick on his
nose, and kicked his rider's hat off, after which the Baron
galloped on ahead to stop the fireworks if possible ; he looked
very picturesquely wild, with his red-lined poncho flying out
on the wind like the wings of a blue and scarlet macaw. At
last we were stopped by the band awaiting us, and had to
tramp solemnly behind it into the grounds of the Casa Grande
— a mass of close-packed dripping umbrellas and damp bodies ;
and before I knew where I was I found myself dismounted^
and hugged and welcomed by one of the best and kindest
women I ever met in all the wide world, and called " dearie "
in a sweet Scotch voice; no wonder Mary longed to be at
home ! And I felt that I was right and the Eio people wrong
about coming to Morro Velho, and the only drawbacks to the ^
journey left were blistered lips and slightly browned hands.

The Casa Grande of Morro Velho was indeed a rare home
for an artist to settle in, and I soon fell into a regular and
very pleasant routine of life. I had the cheeriest and most
airy of little rooms next my friends, with a large window
opening on to the light verandah, in which people were continu-
ally coming and going and lingering to gossip. Beyond that

144 Recollections of a. Happy Life CHAP.

was the garden, full of sweetest flowers; a large Magnolia
grandiflora tree loaded with blossoms within smelling distance ;
around it masses of roses, carnations, gardenias (never out of
flower), bauhinias of every tint (the delight of humming-
birds and butterflies), heliotropes grown into standard trees,
and covered with sweet bloom, besides great bushes of poin-
settia with scarlet stars a foot across; beyond these were
bananas, palms, and other trees, and the wooded hillsides and
peeps of the old works and stream in the valley below.

Mrs. G. was constantly passing my window, looking after
her lazy blacks, who sat down to rest as soon as her eye was
off" them. She had also many pets besides her flowers to
attend to. There were two macaws or araras (as they call
themselves), one blue with yellow breast, the other red and
green. The latter was called "the Mayor," and was very
tame ; he was much attached to Pedro, the oldest slave of the
establishment, and would allow him to do anything he liked
with him. He was also very fond of one of the cats, and the
two strange friends used to huddle close together in the sun
for hours, scratching each other's heads. Occasionally there
was a row when one or other put too much zeal into his work,
but after a rather noisy argument in the macawese and cat
languages they again became friends. Then there were
three green parrots, with blue foreheads and yellow waist-
coats, and pink patches on their wings, who were extremely
talkative, and sang and danced in the negro style; nobody
near passed these birds without a talk. Numberless pigeons
and doves, and a peacock which mounted a certain tree at six
o'clock regularly every evening, announcing his arrival at his
perch by a shrill scream ; so that if the cook were asked why
the dinner was not ready, she would very likely say, " It was not
time, the peacock had not screamed yet." Two pretty gazelles
lived below the garden in the poultry-yard, and cats and dogs
abounded; but my chief friend was an old smooth-skinned
dog called Lopez. He was large, and doubtless belonged to

Brazil 145

that famous breed called mongrels, but was full of intelligence,
and used to sleep under my window and accompany me in all
my walks.

We had delightful rambles together, and always found new
wonders on every expedition. Just below the flower-garden
was a perfect temple of bananas, roofed with their spreading
cool green leaves, which formed an exquisite picture. Some-
times a ray of sunlight would slant in through some chink, and
illuminate one of the red-purple banana flowers hanging down
from its slender stem, making it look like an enchanted lamp
of red flame. Masses of the large wild white ginger flowers
were on the bank beyond this temple, and scented the whole
air. This was a grand playground for the Hector and Morpho
butterflies ; here, too, I used to watch the humming-birds
hovering over and under the flowers, darting from bush to
bush without the slightest method — unlike their rivals, the
bees, who exhaust the honey from one entire plant before they
go to another. Farther down the steep path were masses of
sensitive plants covering the bank with the brightest of green
velvet and delicate lilac buttons. I never could resist passing
the handle of my net over this, when instantly the whole bank
became of a dull, dead, earthy tint, and only the dry twigs and
stalks of the plants were visible, with their shrinking branch-
lets starting from them at most acute angles. Below this
there were two or three old gray trees, on whose trunks or
roots I never failed to find some new wonders of cocoons or
Iarva3, or odd spider's web, green, gold, or silver, as they
glittered in the bright morning sun, often spangled with
diamond dew. Lower still were the clear stream and rickety
little bridge from which I used to watch the humming-birds
and other small creatures bathing, pluming themselves after-
wards on the leaves and stalks of the wild ginger or castor-oil
plants. These latter grow to a great height in this country,
and make fine foregrounds, with their large cut leaves and
purple or green heads of flowers and berries.

VOL. I L

146 Recollections of a Happy Life CHAP,

The curious grass which bears the gray berries called " Job's
tears " was also a handsome plant, and abounded here. Be-
yond the bridge was the kitchen-garden, in which several
superannuated black people did as little as possible from sun-
rise to sunset, at certain very frequent intervals leaving off to
light a fire and cook for themselves various sorts of savoury
decoctions in an iron pot, taking as long as possible to eat it,
after which exertion of course they required rest. In spite of
this not very energetic mode of cultivation, the place was
crowded with vegetables, including cauliflowers, peas, beans,
turnips, carrots, asparagus, parsnips, potatoes, as well as sweet
potatoes, mandioca, " quianga " (the okery of the United States
— a kind of hibiscus with an eatable pod), many kinds of
cucumber and pumpkin, and a large bush of real Congo tea.
Lettuces and parsley were the most difficult things to raise ;
the ants had such a taste for them that the only chance was
to grow them in boxes isolated over a tub of water.

Beyond this garden a slight scramble took me on to the
path beside one of the aqueducts which brought water to the
gold-mines and works; along that I could walk for miles,
winding through the valleys, crossing and recrossing them over
crazy wooden planks, startling enough at first, but which one
soon learned to think nothing of. At first, too, my head was
full of stories of poisonous snakes, and the dread of stepping
upon them, particularly the rattlesnake or cascabella which
was common there, but I soon forgot such creatures existed ;
and during the eight months I was in Minas I never met a
live one, though I frequently saw them dead, and even heard
occasionally the rattle near me. Lopez generally cleared the
way for me, and gave all enemies notice to quit. One day he
came back with his tail between his legs, giving me notice, in
plain dog-language, to be careful, while he insisted on keeping
between me and a kind of big slow-worm they call here a " two-
headed snake," which is quite harmless, and was on this
occasion dead. Another day he returned in the same way,

IV

Brazil 147

and showed me two guinea-fowls who were pulling a snake to
pieces between them. He had quite an idea snakes were to
be avoided. There is one whose habit is to live in branches
of the trees and drop down on the passers-by, which is not
pleasant to think about. One day a black washerwoman"
was returning up my favourite path with her basket of clothes
on her head, when this happened, and she did not hesitate to
drop the freshly-washed load in the mud, snake and all, and
to run for dear life, as did the frightened reptile also, after his
wriggling fashion. However, deaths from snake -bites are
very uncommon. Rewards are given for all dead rattlesnakes,
for whose bite there are no cures.

It was an odd sensation living in an English colony which
possessed slaves ; but this company existed before the slave-
laws, and was with some others made exceptional. As far as
I could see, the people looked quite as contented as the free
negroes did in Jamaica, and, thanks to the new Brazilian regu-
lations, they have the happiness of being allowed to buy them-
selves at a fixed price, if they can save sufficient money. The
girl who brought me my coffee in the morning had bought
two-thirds of herself from her own father, of whom she was
hired by Mrs. G., as he was said to be such a brute that it
was a charity to keep her out of his hands. After five o'clock
her time was her own, and she did embroidery and other work
to sell, so as to complete her emancipation fund. She and
another girl used to squat on the verandah close to my window
working, generally with their feet poked through the balus-
trades. Mary told them one day if they did so I should paint
them, toes and all, which would be a disgrace ; after which
there was always a great scuffle to tuck away their feet whenever
I looked that way. Every other Sunday there was a revista or
review of the blacks in front of the house, and they were all
dressed in a kind of uniform ; the women in red petticoats and
white dresses, with red stripes for good conduct, bright orange
and red turbans and blue striped shawls, which they arranged

148 Recollections of a Happy Life CHAP

over their heads in fine folds; the men had red caps, blue
jackets, and white trousers, with medals pinned on for good
conduct, and a general grin passed over the faces as Mr. G.
and his officers passed by. I could not see much discontent or
sadness in these poor slaves, and do not believe them capable
of ambition or of much thought for the morrow. If they have
abundant food, gay clothing, and little work, they are very
tolerably happy : seven years of good conduct at Morro Velho
gave freedom, which they had just sense enough to think a
desirable thing to have.

Coppers were given at all these revistas for good conduct,
Mr. G. thinking rewards went further than punishments in
the management of these people ; but the quantity of spirit to
be sold to each black per day was limited, and these coppers
were only taken at the Company's shop, so that until freedom
was obtained, it was not easy for the negro to indulge his
dear vice of drunkenness. All babies born were free, the
consequence of which was that the mothers took no more care
of them, as they said they were now worth nothing ! In the
" good old days," when black babies were saleable articles, the
masters used to have them properly cared for; and the mothers
didn't see why they should be bothered with them now. At
Morro Velho every man has his garden — such gardens ! With
running water passing above them so that they could irrigate
to any extent, and full of the richest fruit and vegetables.
The leaves of their Caladium esculentum were often nearly two
feet long. At noonday the beautiful banana -leaves lose all
their fresh shining greenness, and shut themselves up tight
like sheets of folded letter-paper, so as to keep their moisture
in, and appear mere knife-like edges to the sun's scorching
rays ; as it sinks lower they again spread out ready to collect
the evening dews. The blacks devote all these garden treasures
to their pigs, which they fatten up till they are worthy of
Smithfield, with almost invisible necks, little snouts, and
short legs.

IV

Brazil 149

They were full of superstitions. Old Pedro, the macaw's
friend, put bread and meat every other Friday night in the
room his old master the Padre died in ; and as it was never
found in the morning, he declared the old gentleman himself
came and ate it. But Pedro was the pet of the house, and had
his own way in this as in everything. He would have been
free years ago but for his infatuation at times for strong
drink. He had now taken the pledge, and the only thing he
could not resist stealing was tea, which always had to be
carefully locked up. There were two fortress-looking piles of
building on the hills opposite my window, where these poor
creatures lived and were shut in every night.

On the other side of the valley stood the Cornish village —
such a contrast ! All its pretty cottages standing in their own
well-fenced gardens, with pure water running through each,
roses and other familiar English flowers, and fair English
children with clean faces playing at hop -scotch and other
British games in the road. All the head-work in the mines
was done by those strong countrymen, who were well paid,
and could soon put by considerable savings if they had the
sense to content themselves with the food of the country. The
beef was abundant and cheap, so was Fejao farinha, coffee,
and sugar. Most vegetables and fruits were grown without
difficulty; but the miners, who could not do without beer,
champagne, horses, and other extravagant luxuries, of course
soon found their pockets empty, and got into debt besides.

In a weedy garden near was a humming-bird's nest, hanging
to a single leaf of bamboo by a rope of twisted spider's web
three or four inches long, swinging with every breath of air.
These wee birds generally build in this way about Morro
Velho, often hanging their nests over the running water, on
the ends of fern-fronds or on the blades of grass, where the
eggs are safe from the attacks of snakes or lizards ; but they
always choose places with some protection above from rain or
sun. They sit twice in the year, never laying more than two

1 50 Recollections of a Happy Life CHAP.

eggs, which are always white, and about the size of small
Scotch sugar-plums. Some of these humming-birds were quite
sociable. One pair had come regularly twice a year to one of
the outhouses of the Casa Grande for many years, apparently
using and repairing the same nest, which hung by a tiny rope
from the matted ceiling.

Everybody " collected " for me, and the results were some-
times rather startling. One day a hideous black woman,
without any previous announcement, poked her Turk's-head
broom at me through the open window, grunting something
unintelligible ; and behold, a large specimen of the odd insect
called "the praying mantis," clasping its hands devoutly on
the Turk's-head. But collecting is one thing and preserving is
another, and the difficulties of the latter process are great in
so hot and damp a climate. Many of my specimens were
eaten even when hung up by a string, apparently out of reach
of all creeping things. Some of my collections were not
pleasant to handle. One day one of the boys brought me a
large black beetle in his cap which he said would bite. " Oh
no, it never bites," said Mrs. G., scolding him for the very
idea ; then she screamed and dropped it. I got a bottle of
restil to put it in, but screamed and dropped bottle and all as
it hugged my fingers with its sharp-hooked feet, and Eugenio
had the last word, after corking it up securely in the spirit :
" He knew it did bite ! " Another unpleasant creature was a
stinging caterpillar, whose hairs were as dangerous as a
scorpion's tail ; a rub against them might cause the hand
or arm to inflame so that amputation was necessary to save
life. These dreadful things were common enough at certain
seasons. I kept and fed one for a long while, hoping to see
the kind of moth it turned into ; but the blacks hated it to
that extent that they pretended it crawled away when I
was out one day — a difficult thing to accomplish with a glass
shade over it ! The varieties of spider were endless, and their
works worthy of the old Egyptians. One huge colony formed

IV

Brazil 151

a web from the roof of the house to the flagstaff opposite,
dragging one of its sustaining ropes into an acute angle. We
broke down the web, and released the rope to its old straight
line. In less than a week it was again pulled towards the
roof, forming a tight bridge for the enemy to cross and recross.
This spider's body was no bigger than an ordinary green pea.
Some of the webs were so thick and strong that they gave my
face quite a cutting sensation as I rode through them.

About January the heat became more oppressive — 86° was
the average, though it was often 91° in the shade — but the
nights were always cool enough for sleep at Morro Yelho,
which is about 3000 feet above the sea, and I was never
uncomfortably hot. The Gordons, however, who had lived
sixteen years in the climate, longed for a change ; so they
determined to go to pay a long-promised visit to Mr. E. at
Cata Branca, taking a young Scotch lady who had been spend-
ing Christmas with them, and myself.

It was a beautiful day's ride of about 26 miles, the road
winding for the greater part of the way along the high banks
overlooking the Eio das Yelhas, which eventually runs into
the Eio San Francesco, and enters the sea above Bahia. The
river we followed was about as broad as the Tweed at Dry-
burgh, running through wooded hollows. A good road was in
course of making along this valley, on which some hundreds
of the Company's blacks were working, who greeted us with
hearty cheers. In the fresh clearings I saw many new and
gorgeous flowers, as well as some old friends, including the
graceful amaranth plant of North Italy, with which the wine
of Padua and Verona is coloured.1 How did it get to the two
places so far apart? I longed more and more for some in-
telligent botanical companion to answer my many questions.
,v We rested a while at a collection of huts that have been put
up for the work-people near some fine falls of the river, and
the Head Man there told us of one curious fish he had caught,
1 Phytolacca decandra. — ED.

152 Recollections of a Happy Life CHAP.

which seemed to have a sort of inner mouth, which it sent out
like a net to catch small fish or flies with. He showed us a
rough drawing he had made, and was very positive about the
story, which is not more difficult to believe than many other
well-proved wonders of nature. After leaving this settlement,
we mounted up bare hillsides another 1000 feet, and came
to the green plateau of Cata Branca, with its groups of iron-
rocks, piled most fantastically like obelisks or Druid stones
standing on end, dry and hard, and so full of metal that the
compass does not know where to point. Amid these rocks
grow the rarest plants — orchids, vellozias, gum-trees, gesnerias,
and many others as yet perhaps unnamed. One of these bore
a delicate bloom, — Macrosiphonia longiflwa (No. 67 in my Cata-
, logue at Kew), — like a giant white primrose of rice-paper with a
f throat three inches long ; it was mounted on a slender stalk,
and had leaves of white plush like our mullein, and a most
delicious scent of cloves. Another was a gorgeous orange thistle
with velvety purple leaves. I was getting wild with my
longing to dismount and examine these, when we met our kind
host Mr. R coming out to meet us, and in another half-hour
we were in his pretty cottage, where he had been living for
the last two years watching a dying mine, in almost perfect
solitude, expecting to be released any moment. The once-
famous mine of Cata Branca had long been filled with stones.
All around were the ruins of fine houses which had helped to
ruin so many people, and the small cottage we were in was the
only habitable place on the hill, with the exception of a negro
hut or two, and must have been a dreary position for so soci-
able a character as our host.

The summer of St. Veronica was endless that year, and
we had the most glorious weather. The air was much fresher
on the height and did us all good. Every day's ramble shov ed
me fresh wonders. • There was a deep lake near the house, said
(of course) to be unfathomable ; it was surrounded by thick
tangled woods and haunted by gay butterflies. In it Ounces

IV

Brazil 153

were said to drink morning and evening. I never saw them,
but they had lately carried off two of our host's small flock of
sheep, and I saw some skins of these small tigers, which were
richly marked and coloured. One morning we spent on the
actual peak, which rises a perfect obelisk of rock 5000 feet
above the sea. Some of the more adventurous of our party
mounted to the very top.

The earth had entirely disappeared from the crannies,
leaving the huge ironstones loosely piled on one another. In
spite of the want of soil, these rocks were loaded with clinging
plants, bulbs, orchids, and wild pines. Tillandsias and Bilber-
gias of many sorts crowded round them ; the latter were very
curious — great green or lilac cornucopias with feathery spikes
and many-coloured flowers, or beautiful frosted bunches of
curling leaves, from the centre of which fell a graceful rose-'
coloured spray of flowers. There were also many euphorbias
and velvet-leaved gesnerias, trailing fuchsias, ipomoeas, and
begonias with wonderful roots like strings of beads. It
was impossible to carry away half I longed for, even if pos-
sible to climb over such rocks with two loaded hands. One
day I rode with Mary and the Baron to visit a dairy-farm
some miles off, where we sat and gossiped, ate toasted cheese,
and drank enough strong coffee to poison any well-regulated
English constitution ; but our life was far too healthy to be
hurt by such little luxuries. Another day we rode down to^
visit some people on the plain below. All these expeditions
showed fresh beauties of nature and miseries of humanity.
At last Mr. G. came to fetch us, and on the Sunday before we
left he read the Service, three Cornish miners coming up from
below to assist at it. Their captain afterwards made a speech
to say " what a pleasure and a privilege it was, etc.," on which
Mr. G. said if they would only come up, he would read it every
Sunday in the same way. " Oh no, it warn't that, it war them
four ladies all stannin' of a row ; it war so long sin' he had seen
four English ladies all at once, it war ! " The poor old man

154 Recollections of a Happy Life CHAP.

almost cried over the extraordinary event. He went down to
his expiring mine again, and we rode home, leaving our kind
host to utter loneliness.

Soon after that a tragedy occurred which filled all our
thoughts for some time afterwards. On my first arrival at
Morro Velho I had found a visitor staying there — an old
friend of the family, a singular old Scotchman with long
flowing white beard and mane, a poet whose brain was full of
his country's legends and genealogies, who had remarked to me
the first night when I said I was half Scotch, " Why, woman,
d'ye no ken ye're a Johnstone ? " This Mr. B. was the super-
intendent of another mine about twelve leagues off. His niece
had now returned with us from Cata Branca, and we were all
to go home with her shortly to pay her uncle a visit ; when one
day news came he was dangerously ill, and before she and the
doctor had gone far on the road, they met another messenger
who said he was dead. She sent him on to beg Mr. G. to
come and help her; before any of them reached home he
was not only dead but buried, and there were strong reasons
for supposing him poisoned. In Brazil it is almost hopeless to
think of getting justice in such a case, though there was little
doubt who did it ; valuables of different sorts were found in
the suspected hut, the owner of which had lately been making
and selling "charms" — the national name for poison. As
British Consul, Mr. G. could help the poor niece better than
any one else could through her troubles ; he also determined
to have the old man's body taken out of the unconsecrated
hole into which it had been hastily thrust, and to have it
brought over and buried near his friends, with all proper forms
and ceremonies, as it would not do to let the natives think
Englishmen might be treated so. There was a great gather-
ing of English from all quarters to the funeral, with black
clothes and much solemnity ; for the strange old man had made
himself liked in the country. The cemetery at Morro Velho
was a lovely spot, on the top of one of the small wooded hills

iv Brazil 155

which jut out into the main valley ; and the last sunset rays
reddened the wooded tops around as the old man was at last
let down into his quiet resting-place. Kind hands dropped in
pure white alpinia blossoms and roses over him, while his
friend read the old service of our Church.

There was something very touching about that quiet service
and its old-fashjoned hymns and psalms in that far land, with
the great mass of bougainvillea seen through the open door,
and the sweet hoya trained over it. In that same bougain-
villea bush there was an exquisite little nest made of the
finest possible twigs and straws, so very fragile in its open-
work that one wondered the small gray bird and her eggs did
not fall through it as she sat there. She was perfectly tame,
and merely fluttered away to an upper branch when we went
to look at her treasures, coming down again directly we left
the spot. Six sheep, some guinea-fowl, and the great peacock,
were always in waiting at the church door for chance handfuls
of crumbs or corn ; and when the service was going on, a black
man had to walk backwards and forwards to prevent them
from coming in too.

CHAPTER V

HIGHLANDS OF BRAZIL
1873

ABOUT the end of March we all started up the hills with bag
and baggage, crossing over a shoulder of the Coral mountains,
and on to Sabara, the chief town of the district, where we took
coffee at the house of " a most respectable brown woman," who
hugged all my friends most warmly. Mrs. G. told me she was
much to be pitied, having lost her only son, to whom she was
devoted. " Was she a widow V — "Oh dear no; she had never
heard of her being married, but as Brazilians go she was a
most respectable person !" Opposite her house we saw a room
full of remarkably clean little black boys, all dressed alike,
and an ill-looking, dandified man in charge of them. He was
a slave-dealer, buying up well-grown boys over twelve years
of age for the Rio market. The law now forbids the sale of
younger children, and every year a year will be added; so
that children of eleven are safe for life where they are, and all
the next generation will be free. These boys looked very
happy, and as if they enjoyed the process of being fatted up.

Our road followed the banks of the river for some way ;
sometimes along the low banks amongst reeds and bushes of
Franciscea ; often over the higher sierras, among strange scraggy
trees, which were covered with more flowers than leaves. On
one especially the white lily-like flowers were very fascinating.
The ipomoeas and bignonias were in great variety. One large
lilac ipomoea grew in massive bunches on the tops of the trees ;

CHAP, v Highlands of Brazil 157

and a smaller white one had fifty or sixty buds and flowers on
every spray, making the trees look as if they had just been
covered with snow. The round-backed Piedade mountain got
nearer and nearer, and we put up for the night at Caite, a
village at its foot.

It was a perfect (fairyland. The great blue and opal Morpho
butterflies came flopping their wide wings down the narrow
lanes close over our heads, moving slowly and with a kind of
see-saw motion, so as to let the light catch their glorious
metallic colours, entirely perplexing any holder of nets.
Gorgeous flowers grew close, but just out of reach, and every
now and then I caught sight of some tiny nest, hanging inside
a sheltering and prickly screen of brambles. All these wonders
seeming to taunt us mortals for trespassing on fairies' grounds,
and to tell us they were unapproachable. At last we left the
forest, and the real climb began amidst rocks grown over with
everlasting peas, large, filmy, and blue haresfoot ferns, orchids,
and on the top grand bushes of a large pleroma with lilac
flowers and red buds like the gum-cistus, and beds of the
wild strawberry, which some Italian monk had introduced
years ago. Two old ladies, " Beate," lived alone in the old
convent, which was still in good repair.

The Baron took charge of the two girls and myself over
the hills ; and at the edge of the Eossa Grande property its
superintendent met us, showed us his trim little mine and big
wheels, and gave us luncheon, then took us up the hill to
admire the view, and accompanied us through two leagues of
real virgin forest, the finest I had yet seen, to the old Casa
Grande of Gongo — a huge half-ruined house which had origin-
ally belonged to some noble family.

The great gold-mine here had at one time yielded more
than £100,000 a year. In that day there were a thousand
miners there, and twenty servants in the great house alone.
The superintendent used to drive a carriage with two horses
over the tangled and stony path by which we had just come ;

158 Recollections of a Happy Life CHAP.

now, one old black man and his family alone inhabited the
place to keep the keys (which didn't lock) and hold up
authority. Gaunt ruins of the different houses stood around ;
but though their roofs were whole and unbroken glass in their
windows, they were scarcely accessible or even visible, from
the thick growth of tangled trees and greenery which had
wreathed itself around and over them. All was thick mat and
forest, except on one side where the grassy hills rose, affording
abundant food for the flocks and herds which supplied the
mines on the other side of the mountains. To this old
deserted place Mr. D. had sent furniture, food, and slaves,
and persuaded his mining captain to let his pretty little wife
go and keep house for us, taking Baby Johnnie to amuse her
and us too. She soon made us at home.

After tea we played a game of whist in the ghost-like old
hall with its heavy wainscoted cupboards, and great gilt hooks
from which the mirrors and chandeliers had formerly hung,
and on which a late superintendent had once committed
suicide. When the present one would have ridden back
through the forest we begged him to stay and keep the Baron
company and the ghosts out, and wishing the two good-night
we began our retreat towards our own part of the house ; but
when we came to the grand staircase, behold ! a gambat was
coming down it very quietly. Now a gambat is not a
fascinating quadruped. He only sees in the dark, and his wife
carries her young in her pocket like a kangaroo. He is like a
tiny bear with most human-looking hands, and a long prehen-
sile tail so enormously strong that when once he has twisted
it round some firm anchorage it would resist the pull of a
strong man, and hold on though bleeding and torn. He has
also the power of emitting a horrible smell like the skunk,
thereby driving away his enemies. Once I remember Lopez
was himself so objectionable after killing one of these creatures
that he had to be locked up for a day or two ; he was, unfor-
tunately, not with us now, and we all cried out for help. The

v Highlands of Brazil 159

poor little beast, looking extremely puzzled at seeing his
usually quiet premises invaded by strange creatures, with
strange lights in their hands, was too brave to turn, and, I am
sorry to say, was killed ruthlessly by our two knights, who
had rushed to our assistance.

The next morning our Baron, who had begun life as a
blacksmith, went round and mended the locks of all the doors
we were likely to use, and our party dispersed, leaving me to
enjoy a fortnight of perfect quiet in the great empty house
and rich forest scenery, with Mrs. S. and her baby boy to keep
me company : to her it was an agreeable change, to me the
thing of all others I had longed for. I used to start every
morning on my inule, with Eoberto on another, for some
choice spot in the forest, where I gave him my butterfly-net
(which he soon learned to use very deftly and judiciously),
while I sat down and worked with my brush for some hours,
first in one spot and then in another, returning in time for a
good wash before dinner. Washing and dressing were very
necessary, as the abundant vegetation here was covered with
Garapatas, the most intolerable of insect-plagues, and at this
season in their infantine and most venomous stage. One blade
of grass might shake a whole nest on to the passing victim,
no bigger than a pinch of snuff, and easily shaken off then ;
but if left, the hundreds of tiny grains would diverge in every
direction till they found places they fancied screwing their
proboscis into, when they would suck and suck till they
became as big as peas, and dropped off from over-repletion.
Of course none but idiots would allow them to do this ; but the
very first attempts of these torturing atoms poisoned one's
blood and irritated it for weeks after. When the insect grew
older and bigger it was less objectionable, as it then could be
easily seen and removed before it did any injury ; it attacked
one then singly, not in armies. But even this plague was worth
bearing for the sake of the many wonders and enjoyments of
the life I was leading in that quiet forest-nook.

160 Recollections of a Happy Life CHAP.

I used generally to roam out before breakfast for an hour
or two, when the ground was soaked with heavy dew, and the
butterflies were still asleep beneath the sheltering leaves. The
birds got up earlier, and the Alma de Gato used to follow me
from bush to bush, apparently desirous of knowing what I was
after, and as curious about my affairs as I was about his. He
was a large brown bird like a cuckoo, with white tips to his
long tail, and was said to see better by night than by day,
when he becomes stupidly tame and sociable, and might even
be caught with the hand. One morning I stopped to look at
a black mass on the top of a stalk of brush-grass, and was very
near touching it, when I discovered it to be a swarm of black
wasps. When I moved a little way off I found through my
glass they were all in motion and most busy. When I returned
again close they became again immovable, like a bit of black
coal, and I tried this several times with always the same effect;
but foolishly wishing to prove they really were wasps, got
my finger well stung. This little insect drama was in itself
worth some little discomfort to see. The brush -grass on
which these wasps had settled was itself curious, each
flower forming a perfect brush — a bunch of them made the
broom of everyday use in the country ; scrubbing-brushes
were generally formed out of half the outer shell of a
cocoanut.

One had always been told that flowers were rare in this
forest scenery, but I found a great many, and some of them
most contradictory ones. There was a coarse marigold-looking
bloom with the sweetest scent of vanilla, and a large purple-
bell bignonia creeper with the strongest smell of garlic. A
lovely velvet-leaved ipomcea with large white blossom and dark
eye, and a perfectly exquisite rose-coloured bignonia bush
were very common. Large-leaved dracaenas were also in
flower, mingled with feathery fern-trees. There were banks of
solid greenery formed by creeping bamboos as smooth as if
they had been shaved, with thunbergias and convolvulus and

v Highlands of Brazil 161

abutilon spangling them with colour. Over all the grand
wreaths of Taquara bamboo, and festoons of lianes, with
orchids and bromeliads, lichens and lycopodiums on every
branch.

I had one grand scramble in a neighbouring forest with Mr.
W., and brought home a great treasure — a black frog. His face
and all the underparts, including the palms of his hands and
feet were flesh-colour; he had black horns over his garnet-
coloured eyes, which he seemed to prick up like a dog when
excited, and which gave much intelligence to his countenance.
I kept this pet for three months, and then trusted him to a
friend to take to the Zoological Gardens in London ; but alas !
he died after three days of sea-air. If he had been corked up
with some moss in an air-tight bottle he would probably have
lived. In the same woods we found several specimens of the
exquisite little butterfly, the Zenonia Batesii, which appeared to
come out twice a year here. The large semi-transparent green
Dido was also abundant, but very shy and clever at eluding
my net. A messenger at last recalled us to Morro Velho.
Visitors had arrived, and Mrs. Gordon wanted us to help in
entertaining them ; so we obeyed at once, stopping by the way
to breakfast with the Baron's family, to his great delight.

Ouro Pr6to, the capital of the province, is full of convents,
and one of them I was told had been built with the washings
of the negroes' heads, after their day's work in the mines was
done, their woolly heads being first sprinkled with gold-dust,
and then sent to be ducked in the church fonts — an original
way of paying tithes ! All along the roads are old diggings —
some deep, some shallow, but all deserted. This honeycombed
valley reminded me somewhat of Ipsica in Sicily. After
rounding the shoulder of the mountain, we came to the village
of Passagio, also long deserted, and to the Casa Grande. Such
a pretty house, and such pretty English children ran out to
meet us — no children in the world are so pretty as English.
The country about the Passagio Mine was very picturesque,

VOL. I M

[62 Recollections of a Happy Life CHAP

in a narrow and deep valley worn by a noisy rushing stream
bordered by rich green tangles. Great fern-fronds of the gold
and silver varieties were often a yard in length among the
rocks above.

We rode one afternoon to Marianna, where the Bishop lived,
surrounded by numerous convents. The hills round it were
bare; the place looked gloomy; of the Bishop himself but one
story was told — of his saint-like simplicity of life. One of his
admiring devotees sent him once four embroidered shirts made
by her own hands. A beggar soon afterwards paid him a visit,
to whom he gave two of them, as he said no man wanted more
than two shirts — one at the wash and one on. He was also
charitable towards heretics, and said he really believed Mrs.
G. would go to heaven in spite of her faith. In general,
Brazilians are not so kind, and would say of a Protestant
friend, "Yes, she has good manners; what a pity it is she
must burn in hell ! "

It was dark when we turned back from Marianna and rode
to the country-house of a rich man of good family, a Commen-
dador or Knight of the Empire, who was giving a party that
evening. His handsome wife wore a cotton dress striped with
gay colours, and, wonderful to say, appeared without the usual
handkerchief on her head, to bind up and hide all her hair ;
instead of this hideous head-dress she had a bunch of China
roses stuck behind her ear coquettishly. We were first shown
the state-apartments, in which the family never lived, with
ounce and other skins laid about on the floors, and nick-nacks
on the tables, some old portraits of Portuguese ancestors on the
walls ; a tawdry little chapel, and pretty garden ; then we re-
turned to the real living-room — a sort of back-kitchen full of
litter and black children, with its door opening to the dirty
stable-yard; pigs and cocks and hens strutting around the
doorstep. By this entrance we and the other guests had
arrived, and here we dismounted from our horses and mules.
Gradually a curious collection of people assembled — Herr W.

v Highlands of Brazil 163

and his wife (a perfect ideal of Voss's "gute verstandige
Hausfrau "), a clever lawyer, the local M.P., a perfectly round
Canonico with red embroidery on the back of his gown and a
redder face, an old Cornish mining captain with a grievance,
and several Brazilians, who were soon seated round a large tea-
table in the room I have described — half pantry, half passage.
The lady of the house insisted on my taking the head of the
table as the greatest stranger, while she waited on her guests,
afterwards taking her own tea in a cupboard, from which
Mr. M. dragged her, much against her will. The tea itself was
peculiar — a mixture, I believe, of the native tea and strong
green tea. I had two cups to make sure if I liked it, and was
as much puzzled at the end as I was at the beginning. After
this meal the men went into another room and played at loo,
by which they often lose much money, while we women " did
company " in foreign languages, German being a real rest after
the difficult and unpronounceable Portuguese; till Mr. M.
thought he had gambled enough for all purposes of politeness,
and we rode home through the thick darkness, under the
clouded sky, following the steps of Mrs. M.'s old white horse,
who knew every step of the way. What a noise the crickets
and frogs and other small creatures make at night ! they are
as bewildering to one's ears as the buzzing of a London " at
home," and are one of the things which strike a stranger most
in tropical lands.

One day we went up the big mountain whose shape is so
unlike anj7" other, sprinkled with rocks as big as houses, the
two top ones, from which it takes its name, being seen from
enormous distances : none but cats or Tyndall would think of
climbing them, but wre enjoyed our ramble at their base. The
beautiful scarlet sophronitis orchids quite coloured every rock
and tree-stem, shining out gloriously among their green leaves
and the gray lichens round. It was difficult to make up one's
mind to cease picking them, the plant came off so easily with
such great satisfactory slabs of roots, and we knew how they

164 Recollections of a Happy Life CHAP.

would be valued in England if we could only get them there.
There were two varieties ; one, " coccinea," rather deeper-
coloured and smaller than the grandiflora, which was about
the size of the English peacock butterfly. A few hundred
yards beneath the top there was fine pasture-ground, varied
by groves of spreading trees. One wonders the rich people of
Ouro Preto do not build villas up in this lovely spot to pass
their summers in ; perhaps they fear the large boa constrictors
which people say haunt these big rocks, occasionally attacking
the cattle.

From Itacolumi there is a grand view of the fine massive
mountain of Caraca, amid whose peaks the great Jesuit College
lies hidden, and the other side of which we had seen from
Cocaes. On the lower slopes we passed through pretty woods
in which I saw heads of a white-flowered begonia with large
velvety leaves poking itself through thick bushes with much
pertinacity, its stalks often six feet high at least. The light-
blue plumbago also grew in the same way. I had an example
at Passagio of how quickly the leaf-cutting ants can work. A
citron-tree in the afternoon was perfectly green; the next
morning nothing but bare stalks remained, and a long stream
of apparently walking bits of leaves was still moving off in a
long straight line towards the nest. They are said to attack all
lemon, citron, and orange-trees, but never to touch the lime,
whose essential oil is too strong for their taste, and which has
armed itself with thorns. Nothing seemed to turn these little
creatures from their path ; even pouring boiling water on them
does not have any effect till many are killed, when they make
up their minds to go another way. Often that desperate
remedy had to be applied, or the whole house might have been
invaded ; but it always went to my heart to see the murder of
so many intellectual beings, for ants are not as other insects.

At last Mr. R came, as he had promised, to ride home with
me; and the M.s accompanied us back to Ouro Preto, where my
friend Dona Maria had a pretty gift for me — a large spray of

v Highlands of Brazil 165

maiden-hair fern with a tiny little humming-bird's nest hang-
ing from its end by a rope of twisted spider's web, lined with
the finest silk-cotton down. The enthusiasm I showed over it
diverted the family, and still more when I said I would not
part with it for a hundred pounds ; they thought me indeed

mad.

\

Our last stop on this journey was at the house of a friend —
a big farmhouse where crowds of little black children were
playing round the mules in the yard, or packed away in a
building on the other side of it, together with the pigs and
the poultry, so that the living-house was clear of them. The
garden, too, was a miracle of neatness for Brazil. Straw-
berries grew in it and Brazilian raspberries (very unlike ours).
We sat outside for some time star-gazing, and talking of home.
The famous Southern Cross is as unlike a cross as four stars
can well be, but nevertheless is a pretty constellation, its
two very bright pointers moving with it as our Bear moves
round the Pole Star ; and when we started in the dark the
next morning they were above, instead of below the Cross, as
they were when we had last looked at them. The southern end
of the Cross touches one of the curious Black Clouds of
Magellan which veils part of the Milky Way, and makes as
odd a collection of tropical curiosities as any of the nearer
wonders, either vegetable or animal. As we had more than
forty miles to ride, Mr. R mounted me on his own spare mule
— a noble beast who kept close to his friend, and needed neither
whip nor spur. My mule was abandoned to Roberto, who wore
a big spur, though he had neither shoes nor stockings, the
strings being held between the great toe and the next in the
usual negro style. Poor Brissole did not gain by the exchange
as much as I did over the long dusty roads.

A fortnight's work at home was very pleasant, with kind
friends, occasional visitors coming to relieve the monotony of
a family party. Amongst others, a gentleman came, a real
genius, who combined the accomplishments of making false

1 66 Recollections of a Happy Life CHAP.

teeth and tuning pianos; he also excelled as a dog-doctor
and maker of guitars. Once we made a picnic to the top of
the Coral mountain, 2000 feet above us.

At last Mr. Gordon said he would start on the 21st of May
for his long-talked-of holiday-journey to the Caves of Corvelho,
and arranged to take his daughter and myself and an English
gentleman. We were to have started at daylight, but many
things came to detain our leader, so that we really did not
get off till the full heat of midday. There were three bag-
gage mules, six spare mules, five men, and Lopez. A. G.
rode over the shoulder of the Coral mountain with us, and
then divided his spurs between his sister and myself before
returning — a fact the mules soon felt established, and they
required no more use of them, but jogged on merrily at their
natural ambling pace. It is quite a mistake to make mules
walk ; they do not understand it, and dawdle mournfully. Up
and down the steep roads we met a dozen or more ox-teams,
dragging great trees by means of two huge wheels made of
solid segments of trees bound with iron. There were often
twenty or more poor beasts in each team, struggling and groan-
ing, with an army of slaves poking pronged staves into them,
and howling at them. It was a most painful sight to see. They
often come a hundred miles with their unmanageable loads
over these roughest of roads.

We passed the night at a lonely farmhouse — the roughest
of quarters, where we were glad to camp round a wood fire on
the mud floor, sitting on our wraps. However, we were sup-
plied with an excellent supper, sent down at midnight on the
heads of three black giants, by friends whose hospitable house
we had missed in the growing darkness. We reached their
Fazenda the next morning. They were educated Brazilians
of the upper class. We breakfasted there, then rode on
through a wooded country, till at sunset we came in sight of
the Lago Santo, a shallow sheet of water getting gradually
filled up, and I could hardly see the likeness our old Swiss

v Highlands of Brazil 167

friend found between it and the Lake of Geneva. It was cer-
tainly long since he had seen the latter, he said.

An air of indescribable dulness seemed to hang over it
and the poor straggling village on its banks, and we wondered
more and more what the charm was which had kept the
famous Danish naturalist Dr. Lund here for more than forty
years. He was now nearly eighty years old, and had made
several collections of natural curiosities and plants, which had
gone to Copenhagen. He had corresponded with many of the
scientific men of Europe, but always lived entirely alone, and
since the death of his secretary he seldom had an educated
man to speak to. Once the Danish Government sent a man-
of-war to Eio to fetch the doctor home, and he rode as far as
Morro Velho, then lost courage, and returned to his dear lake.
In former days he used to pass the heat of the day in a room
he had built and fitted up as a laboratory over his boat-house
on the lake ; but now his habits were those of an invalid, and
he seldom went outside his garden, and never left his room
till after midday, when he liked to sit in his arbour and talk,
which he did well in many languages. His English was
astonishing, considering he had only learned it from books.
He had a good library, and several times in the course of con-
versation he hobbled off into the house to seek some book, and
to show us the authority for what he was saying. He seemed
full of information on general subjects and on what was going on
in Europe, as he read many foreign journals. His garden was
full of rare plants and curiosities, collected and planted by him-
self. The trunk of one large date-palm was covered with a mass
of lilac Lselia flowers, and a beautiful night-blooming cactus
hung in great festoons from another tree, or climbed against a
wall like a giant centipede, throwing out its feet or roots on each
side to cling on by — it seemed to change its whole character by
force of circumstances. I had made a painting during the
morning of a rare blue pontederia which the doctor had per-
suaded with considerable difficulty to grow on his lake, and

1 68 Recollections of a Happy Life CHAP.

he was much delighted with it, and declared I was " one very
great wonder" to have done it. The PUlodendron Lundii
was another of his most curious plants, a sort of great cut-
leaved and climbing tree-arum, whose leaves are almost as
good as a sundial, showing by their temperature the time of
day.

Thirty years before our visit Dr. Lund had discovered the
stalactite caves of Corvelho, and, as we were now on our way
to them, was much interested in giving us directions how to
find parts of them unknown to any but himself. Few persons
had been far in since he first found them. He told us of the
large apes, lizards, snakes, and other antediluvian beasts whose
bones he had found there, as well as those of men with retreat-
ing foreheads, whose teeth showed they lived on unground
corn and nuts.

It was late in the afternoon when we said good-bye and
rode off, our saddle-bags well filled with cakes and oranges, a
parting gift from our old friend. In a few hours we reached
the Fazenda of Commendador 0., a huge building like a
fortress, with its enclosure of slave-houses, and its one closed
gate, at which we knocked loudly with a stone, our admission
being heralded by the barking of some score of mongrel dogs.
Their owners matched them well, and a most miserable collec-
tion of beings received us. "The ladies" (about a dozen)
conducted Mary and myself into the state bedroom, and then
brought in chairs and sat down to have a comfortable stare at
us, their slaves standing behind them and staring likewise.
After some attempts at conversation, we sat down and waited
patiently for them to go. After a time they departed, to our
great relief, but took turns to look through the keyhole and
the chinks in the window shutters, till we stopped them up
with pocket-handkerchiefs.

The men seemed to spend both night and day lounging in
the verandah. Whenever our shutters were opened they camo
and stared in too at us without the least ceremony. We had

v Highlands of Brazil 1 69

a ewer and a basin of solid silver, but the candles at dinner
were stuck into empty wine-bottles. I never saw any family
pretending to gentle blood so dirty ; the Commendador him-
self was absolutely unwashed and unshaved. Fortunately
those people do not consider it polite to sit down and eat with
their guests, but feed afterwards at the other end of the table.

We did not leave this charming family till the sun was
high in the heavens. Poor old Lopez was as glad as we were
when at last we started ; for he did not take to the four-footed
company more than we did to ours. He kept close to us all the
time, and gave a series of barks and jumps as he heard the
great gate swing behind us.

A couple of hours through the woods brought us to the
house of a friend, the Baron E,. de V., a great ally of Mr.
Gordon's, where we were received with the most boisterous
geniality. His house looked thoroughly practical and thrivingx;
his wife and daughters were lady-like and neat, but very quiet.
They gave us coffee and cakes, ale and fruit, on gorgeous silver
trays said to be worth ,£150 each, in a long room with windows
nearly all round it, shaded by banana-trees with their fresh
green leaves, and black grapes hanging from the vines trained
round the frames. Portraits of the old Portuguese royal
family were on the walls, chairs were arranged round the
room, and arm-chairs surrounded a hearthrug at the end, to
which we were conducted as .the place of honour on entering.
There was a round table in the middle of the room, on which
was a massive silver-branched candlestick, with smaller candel-
abra round it.

About a league from this were some pretty stalactite caves,
which our host took great delight in showing us ; for he had
once hidden in them for three months in time of political
troubles. One of them was 1500 feet long. There were caves
beyond that, but lower, and too damp to enter. The thing
which struck me most in these caves was the exquisitely
finished margin left by the different water-levels, like the rims

170 Recollections of a Happy Life CHAP.

of marble fountains. The cliffs outside were much like those of
Saxon Switzerland in their singular forms. Some of them
formed fine old gateways, making, with the different creeping-
plants which hung over them, rich pictures of form and colour.
Indigo was cultivated among the sugar plantations, and there
I saw for the first time quantities of large loose hanging nests
made of twigs and sticks. Some of these were two feet long
at least, and were the work of a comparatively small bird, in
order to guard its young from squirrels and snakes. The
Baron was a famous hunter, and his table was well furnished
with excellent fish, paca, partridges, quail, etc. — everything in
his house was superexcellent and abundant. The next morn-
ing he himself called everybody before light, and gave us a
grand hot breakfast at six. We started with a large party,
including the great man, his bailiff, and pet pointer, who, he
said, was entirely English (though it had forgotten its mother
tongue).

We had nine long leagues to ride, and passed only three
houses all day, stopping at one to change mules and drink
coffee. The mistress of the house gave me three pink eggs,
and one large ostrich egg, which she thought she had improved
by dyeing it a bright blue. Eggs are not the easiest things to
carry on a jogging mule when hung on the same pommel with
a sketch-book and a waterproof cloak, and I was glad to get
them safely to our night's quarters. Cedros, where we were
to stop for two nights, was a collection of houses built round
a small cotton-mill by two brothers who had been possessed
by the rare wish to do something for themselves, though they
belonged to a rich family, and their old father divided his
income equally between all his sons every year, giving each
sufficient to do nothing genteelly on ; but these two eccentric
youths thought they would like to make more, and started
this cotton factory, getting the best machinery they could,
and importing an English mechanic with his American wife to
teach the natives to work it.

v Highlands of Brazil 1 7 1

Bernardo took us out of our road to show me the most mag-
nificent specimens of Buriti palms, with great fan-like leaves,
and noble bunches of red fruit full five feet long, which Bates
describes as " quilted cannon balls," from the embossed mark-
ings on them ; they make a kind of butter from the fruit, and
hammocks and ropes from the fibre. These noble trees were
standing in a kind of marsh amidst long reeds and stagnant
water. Oxen were feeding near, and they told there the old
story of the great boas killing and swallowing these beasts
whole, leaving the horns sticking out of their mouths till they
rot off. We slept that night at the house of Bernardo's father,
a toothless old gentleman of eighty ; his old wife looked very
happy with all her big sons round her, and her home was a
good specimen of its kind. Her verandah was edged with one
long trough of growing plants, fringed with carnations hanging
down outside a yard or two in depth — thick masses of foliage
dotted with bright flowers.

Beyond this garden of sweet flowers we had a good view
over the usual large enclosure of the Fazenda, at the other side
of which was the sugar-making machinery. Part of the court
was covered with freshly picked Indian-corn heads, which the
slaves were shelling by the light of several bonfires, these
being fed with the husks and dry remains of the sugar-canes.
One man was leading a kind of monotonous chant, which the
rest followed in a series of howls (not the kind of negro
melodies we hear in London streets). After dinner we
followed the old lady into a room, apparently the laundry,
which seemed also to be used as a nursery for numberless
black babies. I asked how many there were, and was told,
" Oh, she had never counted them, there were always more
bora every day ! Always the same bother of finding names
for them." They are said to be fully black from their birth,
and do not darken with age and light, like some other varieties
of blacks. There were several looms in the passage, in which
the women work beautiful counterpanes of a brown-coloured

172 Recollections of a Happy Life CHAP.

cotton, ornamenting them at the same time with different
fanciful patterns in bright-coloured wools. Near this place is
a very curious old altar, probably Indian. It is made of a single
block of ironstone, shaped and grooved rudely, and hollowed
into a sort of font. It stands on another block of stone, and
when tapped with any hard substance produces a ringing metallic
sound. It is placed quite alone at the top of a hill, and no
legend is known about it. The Brazilians have little curiosity
about things in their country, though these people had plenty
about the reason of our wanting to see the caves of Corvelho.
It was a good ten miles' ride to the caves, and we stopped
on our way to explore some smaller ones, the entrances of
which were beautifully draped with cacti and other parasites
and creepers, from under which flew a troop of beautiful white
owls. The cave was quite dry, but bore the marks of a con-
siderable body of water having flowed through it at times.
The stalactites were very perfect. Outside was a lake, also
quite dry, which refills every year at a certain season, like that
of Zirknitz in Carinthia. A league beyond this was the great
cave we had come so far to see, whose entrance was reached
by a steep climb of a hundred yards from the stream below.
It too was quite dry, but the steps or terraces which marked
the different water levels were edged and banked up as
regularly as the fountains of old Rome, and the grand hall at
jthe entrance was like a bit of fairyland. Great masses of
stalactite stood up from the ground, or hung from the roof,
tinted with delicate blues and greens and creamy whites.
Within the cave our scanty supply of light did little towards
showing the endless halls and passages, and as Mr. Gordon was
bent on making a minute measurement of them all, the pro-
gress was slow. The width of one of the great elliptical roofs
was over fifty French metres, and it had no pillars or supports,
only the elegant pendent stalactites hanging in groups. Of
course there were plenty of mosques, fonts, pulpits, curtains,
and Milan -cathedral roofs turned topsy turvy and every

v Highlands of Brazil 173

other way, and every variety of cinnamon, creamy, and white
alabaster; but the only water we found was scarcely deep
enough to wash a baby in. It would have made a lovely font
for any cathedral, with its hanging canopy of pure white lace-
work over it. We found abundant footmarks of ounces,
gambats, and pacas, but only one place where bones were
buried in the stalactite, and they were too much broken to be
worth moving. Four long days we passed in this wonderful
cave, our illuminations improving each day. We had bull's-
eye lanterns, torches of Oanella di ema dipped in tar, half
orange-skins full of oil to place in certain niches and mark the
road. Then we had ladders made of bamboo-canes bound
together with lianes or stalks of climbing plants ; but in spite
of all this I felt we were groping in the dark, and the air was
hard to breathe and very hot so far in the earth.

Our rides home were by the light of a very young moon
and the fireflies. We tried to keep the cloud of white dust
kicked up by the mule in front at a sufficient distance to guide
us, and yet not get into our eyes. It was tedious work, and
at the end of our journey we found little rest. So after the
second day underground we determined to try another Fazenda.
Mounting the wooded heights above the cave, then over open
downs dotted with silk-cotton and other trees, one caught fine
distant views of the Diamantina mountains, dark purple in the
sunset, which was a rare gold and vermilion tint that night.
The show was scarcely over when we reached " Once." The
name sounded ominous, but the people were kind, and though
somewhat astonished at such an invasion, received us hospitably
as we rode into their enclosure.

A most jolly fat lady came out, lightly attired in the usual
embroidered chemise and a red petticoat. She took Mary and
myself at once to see our " rooms " — a large barn with many
tiles wanting in its roof, and well ventilated walls, half filled
with looms. There was a low wall in one corner to keep back
the rice and corn on the floor. This had been swept back to

174 Recollections of a Happy Life CHAP.

make room for two little beds. Another part of the barn had
been partitioned off by a higher wall, behind which the two
gentlemen were to sleep. These- were our quarters, though
some obstinate old hens and pigs wanted to persuade us that
they had engaged them beforehand ; but Lopez soon settled
- that matter. Our men camped in a shed close by, and the
farmer and his jolly wife lived in a small house on the other
side of the yard, to which we went for dinner, returning to
"Mr. Gr.'s room" (the tidiest part of the barn) for a game of
whist and coffee, putting a tray on a stool for a table. Mr. G.
and his daughter sat on one side of the rickety beds, and Mr.
B. and myself on boxes, with one candle stuck in a bottle for
our light. Our host and hostess and all their family witnessed
the novel entertainment at a distance, seated on the edges of
the different beds, for there were several in the room. It was
very cold, and we put on all the wraps we possessed, including
our own particular blankets, which we carried with us. We
must have formed rather a strange collection of human
oddities, and no doubt the natives thought we wore the
national costumes of our country. At last they were tired
out and retired, while we kept on at our game till nine o'clock,
when we all drank hot sugar-and-water to keep out the cold
(having finished our last drop of anything stronger), and dis-
persed to our several corners of the barn. Lopez, as usual,
kept close to us, but was not content till he had driven all the
poor chickens from their usual roostings on the looms or beams
of the roof. He would also not allow a single cat or rat in
the same room with him, and made sundry rushes at fancied
intrusions during the night. How cold it was ! How the
wind whistled through the holes in the wall close to us ! Mary
said she should die if she stayed a second night, but she did
not; for we had another long day in the cave and another
night in the barn, and then rode over the windy sierras back
to Cedros, where we were again loaded with Mrs. N.'s abundant
talk and kindness.

v Highlands of Brazil 175

Our host rode on with us and lost his way before we had
gone three miles, though we were bound for the principal
town of that district ! It was very cold when we reached the
top of the sierras, and the cold seemed all the stranger that
we were passing through miles of burning grass. Setting it
on fire at certain seasons is the only form of manuring it ever
gets ; after that it springs up with new life. The fire also kills
many of the snakes, and insects who would devour it and the
other crops. At night the country was quite illuminated by
the burning hills. The name of Sette Sugons describes the
place — a low village near a marsh and pools of water, which
suggest a longing for quinine, but it was said not to be un-
healthy. We stopped at a really decent little inn kept by an
old black woman named Donna Anna. Our room was full of
sacks of grain and bales of groceries; but the beds were
covered with gorgeous quilts, the linen dazzlingly white, edged
with fine lace and knotted fringe, also made by hand. We
had even a looking-glass, and a basin and jug; but these
luxuries had to go the round of the guests from room to room,
including a strolling photographer, whose chemicals occa-
sionally sent the water in rather black. His price was twenty
millen reis a head (.£2). I believe a good living might be
made by any one who could take portraits (however indiffer-
ently) in these far-off countries. Many of the country people
here who appear so poor are really rich, and only want the
vanities or luxuries of life to tempt the money from theii
pockets.

Donna Anna was a famous cook, and did nearly all herself.
her "helps" sitting down and grinning by her. The whole
evening we vainly endeavoured to keep the doors shut and the
draughts out; as fast as one was shut some grinning black
head was poked in at the other. The free blacks were espe-
cially curious about us, and in honour of our arrival they put
any amount of grease on their hair, stretching and straightening
it with weights at the end till they fancied it looked " like any

1 76 Recollections of a Happy Life CHAP.

other gentleman's." Another cold day's ride brought us to a
large farmhouse belonging to a very remarkable family, who
would have made their fortunes at fairs. The farmer himself
was perfectly round, with a bullet head and face, all over
which grew hair and beard apparently cut with his wife's
bluntest pair of scissors as close as he could with his left
hand. His fat wife had a thick black beard and moustache
(uncut), her grandmother the same in gray. The children were
all perfectly round, like their fascinating parents, but as yet
beardless. We had a grand but greasy dinner ; the table quite
groaned beneath the quantity of heavy dishes on it. A small
pig cooked whole, and considerably over the usual size for
making such a barbarous exhibition of itself, was among the
dainties. After dinner we sat in a large unfurnished saloon
and did " company." It was no easy task to keep up a con-
versation even for my friend, with her perfect knowledge of
the language ; for these people were absolutely without ideas,
except the usual desire to know what everything cost.

It was a relief the next morning to hear the tremendous
voice of our friend the Baron R. V. before daylight, shouting
to the gentlemen in the adjoining room. He seemed to bring
a more genial world nearer to us. He had ridden over in a
wonderful peaked woollen hood to make sure we did not pass
his house without going in. Now his house was not in our
road at all ; but it was impossible to refuse our friend's positive
determination to take us there, and we resigned ourselves to
his will. After having my face scrubbed by the old grand-
mother's gray beard, my mule took to fidgeting, and I escaped
more adieux and went on ahead. The old lady said she
should always have " Sandades " of me, and I am sure I shall
never forget her, though the beautiful Portuguese word is
untranslatable. It was very refreshing to sit a while with the
quiet Baronessa and her silver coffee-tray and Minton cups, all
so bright and clean ; but after a rest and a chat we went on
to Dr. Lund's again, and were obliged to stop another night

v Highlands of Brazil 177

at the grocer's, as the old gentleman never came out of his
shell before midday. After a while we rode on a little farther
to the house of our old Swiss friend, which he had turned out-
side in for us. He would let no one wait on us but himself,
had cut down twenty dwarf palm-trees to make one dish of
cabbage for us, and hung up various branches and bright
flowers about the verandah — a decoration no native would
think of.

We had but a short journey on to the " City " of Santa
Lucia, a most picturesquely situated village on the top of a
hill, looking over a long stretch of the winding Eio das Velhas^
which again reminded me of the Tweed, and except for a few
palm-trees looked not a bit more tropical ; while the churches,
with their metal pepper-pot towers, and the tiled roofs of the
one-storeyed houses, suggested Hungary. A few houses stood
up out of all proportion to the others. To the largest of these
we now rode, and found a friend there who was staying on a
visit to the poor old Baronessa of S. L., who was then a terrible
sufferer, paralysed even to her tongue. After having been a
generous and sociable woman, she was now neglected and left
to the entire care of slaves, while her relations were fighting
over her property. She had built hospitals and schools and
churches, and had brought up numerous nephews and nieces,
not one of whom seemed to take any charge of her comfort now.
The lady we found there was, like ourselves, a passing guest.
One nephew she had sent to Eio a short while before, telling
him he might draw money if he wanted it from her credit ; he
stayed three months, drew £8000, and had nothing to show for
it. Somehow we made out that the poor old lady liked music,
so we dragged her chair into one of the bedrooms where there
was an antique piano, and gave her as much as she liked of it.
She gave us each at parting a piece of wide thread lace made
by her slaves. The chests in which this lace was kept were
covered with the skins of big snakes of the country; they looked
like scale armour, and were said to be as strong as any leather.

VOL. I N

178 Recollections of a Happy Life CHAP.

From Santa Lucia our way was hot and dusty as we crept
round the shoulder of the Piedade mountain, and came at last
to a ridge from whence we looked down on the pretty town of
Sahara, descending by a road so steep that walking was almost
a necessity, after which we were glad to escape from the glare
into the shelter of Donna Anna's roof, where we lingered till
the cool evening and rode home by moonlight ; what luxury
" home " was after such a three weeks of wandering !

On the 2d of July I saw the last of dear old Morro Velho,
and accompanied Mr. and Mrs. G. back to Eossa Grande, and
on to Cocaes. The forest of Gongo had lost much of its
beauty during this cold dry season ; more trees had lost their
leaves than I expected in a tropical country, and flowers were
quite rare. I was rather glad of this, as it made me regret less
that I was leaving so lovely a country, and I took away the
hope of seeing my kind friends again in England; but in spite of
this it was hard to say good-bye to dear Mrs. Gordon at Cocaes.
Mr. G. was to go down with me to Caraca, so down we went
to a bare hill country, and leaving the village of St. John to
our right, soon came to the bridge and ravine of Caite. It
was a fete day, and everybody was on the road dressed in
their best.

The college of Caraca reminded me somewhat of the Great
St. Bernard, minus the snow. We found the Superior Padre
Julio expecting us, and after dismounting in the court he
walked down to a lower building and introduced me to a
stout old lady with a black silk handkerchief tied over
her head, whom I afterwards found to be the Chief of the
washerwomen ; he left me to her care, taking his other guests
to be entertained in the convent itself. The smallest little
room I ever saw had been prepared, but after seeing me the
old lady seemed to think it would be too tight a fit, and she
moved the bed into her own comfortable apartment, where I
spent a pleasant evening with a heap of valuable botanical
books sent down from the library by the good Padre, who also

v Highlands of Brazil 179

took care to feed me well. He was a most fascinating
character, full of general information and knowledge of the
world ; moreover, a thorough gentleman. The next morning
he was down before seven o'clock looking at my drawings, and
giving me the names of many of the strange plants I had been
hunting for so long. He took me to see the library and garden,
and told me I was the first woman who had entered there for
seventeen years. There are about two hundred and fifty
students in this college, and nine padres, besides my friend ;
but what a difference there was in those men ! I was told
there was one other who would have interested me, as he was
a naturalist, but he was away. Padre Julio told me he wanted
to start a museum and classes for natural history, but the
Brazilians did not see the good of it, and did not care to
inquire into such things. This same absent priest was a good
carpenter, and they showed me a beautifully finished flageolet
he had made out of the heart of the Araucaria pine, using up
his old spurs for the silver parts. The boys at this college
paid only £30 a year, and were taught French, English, and
Latin, as well as mathematics and Portuguese.

The neighbourhood abounded in rare orchids and other
plants, but the rain never ceased to pour, and at this time of
year it generally did pour on these mountains ; so there was
little use in staying, and I resisted all the kind wishes of the
Superior that I should stop on at the washerwoman's, and said
good-bye to him and to Mr. Gordon, who had loaded me with
such continual kindness and hospitality for the last eight
months. He now returned to Cocaes, while I rode after the
Baron in the opposite direction.

We crossed the high boggy watershed, every pool and river
being bordered with a curious dwarf bamboo peculiar to this
mountain, more like young cypresses than canes; and the
rocks were everywhere covered with rare orchids. The descent
was over the roughest of tracks, and we had to walk for quite
two hours, and quickly too, for the darkness was creeping on.

180 Recollections of a Happy Life CHAP.

The Baron grumbled incessantly at those who had kept him so
late. The wild bromeliads were glorious ; I saw acres of one I
had given ten shillings for not many years ago at Henderson's
— a nidularia with deep carmine nest and turquoise flowers in
the centre. After much sliding, tumbling, and slipping, we
arrived at Senor Antonio de Sonlea's, and were received most
kindly by him and his young wife. Before eight the next
morning we were riding over the smaller spurs and still under
the wet clouds of Caraca, now and then getting a good shower-
bath from some overhanging curl of bamboo or green tangle
as we passed. Everything was dripping with moisture ; how
lovely those wet mornings were ! And the huge spiders' webs
all strung with crystal beads, so strong that they seemed to
cut one's face riding through them.

About eleven we entered the principal iron basin of Minas,
San Antonio de Pereira, where all the roads and rivers were
black and all the rocks red. After winding for some time
through this singular valley, we mounted high over the next
ridge, and presently looked down on Santa Anna, Marianna,
and finally on Ouro Pre"to; Itacolumi being covered with
cloud like Caraca. Instead of going into the capital, we
turned aside through its eastern suburb and crossed the river
to the new road. The town is wonderfully picturesque, though
most inconveniently built for its inhabitants, stretching over
the steep spurs of real mountains. At a distance, the roofs of
the houses looked like a succession of steps. I longed to sketch,
but did not like to stop the Baron, as we had had a hard day's
work for the mules; so we went on farther and put up at a lonely
rancha by a bridge, and secured the whole three rooms in the
house to ourselves. All the sheds outside were filled with
merchandise and people on their way from Diamantina to Bio.
Now that the Cape diamonds are so much easier to obtain, the
famous old mines of Brazil have been nearly abandoned;
labour is so much dearer there that it hardly pays to work
them, though the stones are of better quality.

v Highlands of Brazil 181

More troops of mules and men from this old Diamantina
arrived that same night, and the Baron was most mysterious
about knowing them and not letting them know him, etc. etc.
He insisted on starting before daylight to get ahead of them ;
so we jogged on through cloud and cold into sun and dust, and
over dazzling many-coloured sandstone roads for five hours,
only stopping once at a lonely hut to change mules and eat
our bread and cheese, then on again by a road which was in
many places "carriageable," but then minus the carriages.
We passed instead endless processions of loaded mules, generally
led by the " Madrina " — a horse with a peal of bells, feathers,
and a curious little dressed-up doll in orthodox crinoline, doing
duty for the Madonna, suspended over his headpiece.

We arrived at our night's quarters soon after midday, and
got the rooms the Baron wanted, in a most comfortable house
kept by people who had seen better days, and had done their
best to educate their children. Three of the girls took me a
stroll through the farm, and showed me many curious little
insect-nests of different sorts, for in these countries the insects
are even more curious in their home -architecture than the
birds ; one little cocoon I saw here seemed of the finest frosted
silver. The small town of Che Luz is famous for its guitars,
and I saw the work of making them going on in several of the
houses. Eibera I shall never forget; it is notoriously the
worst quarters on the road. I had a very tolerable mud-
floored room to myself, and a quantity of pigeons pattering
over the mat (which did duty for a ceiling over my head),
cooing to one another, and kicking down dust and fleas, which
last were also taking visibly all sorts of calisthenic exercises on
the floor. From the window I had an uninterrupted view of
the farmyard or general slop-pan of ages; but when I had
rushed from all this up the hill to the wild country, I thought
even Eibera was worth a journey to see. Birds like canaries
were twittering in the bushes ; armies of ants were carrying on
their mysterious occupations ; their great nests lined the road

1 82 Recollections of a Happy Life CHAP.

with such regularity one almost fancied they had heen part of
the design of the engineer who made it. The air was as
delicious as air could be, and as I returned from my walk I
almost envied the man who owned Ribera ! He was a Justice
of the Peace, and my beautiful room was his "study" on
ordinary occasions. Besides its two beds, it had a table with
legs of such very odd shapes and lengths that three of them
required stones of different sizes to keep them standing at all ;
there was nearly a foot of difference between the longest and
shortest leg ; on the table stood his worship's law-dictionary,
and inkstand full of black dry porridge. He and the rest of
his variously coloured family lounged about and stared ; and I
was again assured, as on coming up, that the lunatic who sat
on the doorstep was generally harmless : on the whole, one
would avoid this place if there were any other within ten
miles to stop at. I suppose the Baron was glad to leave it as
early as he could, for we were in our saddles before daylight.
It was cold, but very beautiful, seeing the full moon gradually
fade into the more gorgeous tints of dawn, the hill -tops
dipped in pure gold, the nearer and lower ones deep purple.
My poor old leader was quite ill, and when we got to the half-
way house he said he could go no farther, but changed his
mind after breakfast.

I walked into the back verandah to get into the sun, for I
was half numbed with cold, and found a huge copper pan (the
usual bath of the country) placed on a great bonfire in the
yard, full of stewing meat, stirred round and round by two
men with long poles; on the kitchen-fire a huge caldron of
potatoes was boiling, so we had little chance of starving. The
fat landlady took a dish in one hand and a long kind of toast-
ing fork in the other, with which she fished out dainty bits
for us from the two steaming messes. We left again by moon-
light, but this time had no sun to cheer us, and though I put
on a pair of gloves for the first time for a year I could scarcely
feel my fingers for the cold, and yet it was not freezing.

v Highlands of Brazil 183

We stopped at another solitary house for breakfast, and I
watched the woman making biscuits of mandioca flour and
white of egg, each one separately rolled out like a ring on a
large pleroma leaf, which was then put in the baking-tin
(they generally used the banana leaves; these would have
gained a prize among foliage plants at an English horti-
cultural show). At Popoyas I declined the state apartments
upstairs, where I should have had to sit bolt upright in a
chair and smile blandly all the afternoon in return for the
hospitable stares of the family, so I pleaded fatigue and
stayed in the ordinary travellers' room. The next day we
passed again over the fine sierra of Mantiqueira; the holes
where mules were drowning in the wet season were now
full of dust but unmended, the bridges were even more
dangerous than they were then, and the half-eaten carcase
of a mule surrounded by a tribe of Burinboos was tainting
the air for miles.

My last night on this journey was an unquiet one, in
another solitary house near the new railway works. It was
Sunday, and half-drunken navvies came and thumped at the
door all night. My room opened on the verandah and got its
share of thumps too, but I knew if the Baron or Eoberto
wanted anything they would begin " 0 Dona Pop ! " and not
hearing that, I hugged the cold blankets and kept still till
called as usual at four, for I knew there was a wooden bar
across the door which would resist any quantity of thumping.
But the mules had got into sweet pasture and would not be
found, and the thick cloud made it no easy task to hunt for
them. Four hours it took, when the poor men came in soaked
and shivering, and the Baron stormed and grumbled : " There
had been such a row he had not slept a wink ; it was too cold
even to take off his boots, and the coffee was burned," etc. ;
so he grumbled himself into high good-humour long before we
entered the trim German suburb of Juiz de Fora. The next
morning, after squeezing the good old Baron's hand for the

184 Recollections of a Happy Life CHAR

last time with real regret, I packed myself into the crowded
coach and was whirled away towards Bio.

The distant Organ Mountains peeped at us over the ends of
the green valleys, and I again thought nothing in the world
could be lovelier than that marvellous road ; and then what a
welcome the kind M.s gave me, and what a cosy little room
in their house at Petropolis ! It was rather pleasant too to
see my old box again and its contents. Of what priceless value
those shoes and stockings and paints seemed to me ! And how
I longed for them! I had intended starting for Para in a
week, but was persuaded to give it up, as the yellow fever was
still lingering all along the coast ; and I had a longing first for
rest in my pleasant, comfortable quarters, and then still more
for a sight of home, friends, and books again.

Meanwhile I made two visits to Eio, the chief object of
which was to see the Emperor, to whom I had a letter from
my father's old friend Sir Edward Sabine. The Emperor is a
man who would be worth some trouble to know, even if he
were the poorest of private gentlemen ; he is eminently a
gentleman, and full of information and general knowledge on
all subjects. He lives more the life of a student than that to
which ordinary princes condemn themselves. He gives no
public entertainment, but on certain days he and the Empress
will receive the poorest of their subjects who like to take
their complaints to them. He kindly gave me a special
appointment in the morning, and spent more than an hour
examining my paintings and talking them over, telling me the
names and qualities of different plants which I did not know
myself. He then took the whole mass (no small weight) in his
arms, and carried them in to show the Empress, telling me to
follow. She was also very kind, with a sweet, gentle manner,
and both had learned since their journey to Europe (of which
they never tired of talking) to shake hands in the English
manner. They had both prematurely white hair, brought on
by the trouble of losing their daughter and the miserable war

v Highlands of Brazil 185

in Paraguay. On my second visit to the palace the Emperor
was good enough to show me his museum, in which there is a
magnificent collection of minerals. He took especial delight
in showing me the specimens of coal from the province of Rio
Grande do Sul, which promise to be a source of great riches
to the country if his schemes of facilitating the transportation
can be carried out. At present, though the coal itself is close
to the surface of the ground, there are so many transhipments
necessary in bringing it to Eio that it is cheaper to bring it
from England or the States. I have not the slightest know-
ledge of mineralogy, but I blacked the ends of my fingers with
a wise air, and agreed heartily with the Emperor's opinion,
that if the precious stuff could be brought into consumption
cheaply, it would be of more use to Brazil than all the
diamonds of Diamantina. Then he showed me many of the
most precious books in his library, some views of the San
Francisco river, etc.

The palace is not in a good situation ; but the Emperor
passes a great part of the year at Petropolis, around which
there are endless beauties. One spot there especially attracted
me, where an old companion of Humboldt's had settled him-
self in an unpretending cottage. He had planted all sorts of
rare plants and palms around it, and the real virgin forest
sloped down to it at the back, while a glorious view of blue
mountains was seen from the front windows, with some few
great forest giants left as foreground, their branches loaded
with parasites and festooned with creeping plants. This little
house was the highest inhabited house of the neighbourhood,
the path up to it sufficiently steep to keep off ordinary morn-
ing visitors, though I am told it is a favourite walk of the
Emperor's, who found the old German naturalist a pleasanter
companion than many in the world below. When I was
there this old man was dying, and his pretty place would soon
be a ruin. Already his treasures of moths, books, birds, and
butterflies were half destroyed by mould and devouring ants ;

1 86 Recollections of a Happy Life CHAP.

even the bridge which crossed the cascade and the path up to
his house were falling away. I never felt anything more sad.

Petropolis seemed full of idle people and gossip, and it was
thought rather shocking and dangerous for me to wander over
the hills alone ; wild stories were told of runaway slaves, etc.
I felt out of place there, and got more and more home-sick,
but determined to have at least a glimpse of the Organ Moun-
tains before I went. I was told the way was most difficult,
and even dangerous; neither mules nor guide could be got. Still
J[ persevered, and finally heard of a mason at Petropolis who
knew the way and would like a change of air and a holiday,
,but he could only spare four days. Mr. M. kindly lent him a
J famous old mule, and sent it on the day before to San Antonio,
where I was also to find a horse ; and, in spite of the persistent
rain at Petropolis, I and the mason started by the Juiz de
Fora coach at six o'clock, and were set down about sixteen
miles on the road at a venda near a bridge, where we saddled
our steeds and mounted, my small bag and paint-box being
fastened to the crupper of my guide's mule. My horse was of
the E-osinante order, very bony and old, with two great gaping
wounds on her shoulders caused by the bites of vampire bats,
into which the flies walked in the most distressing manner.
After winding along two or three valleys, we began to mount
in good earnest. The only danger on our path was from the
hanging wreaths of bamboo, and the acacia called " cat's paw,"
which had been long untrimmed, and might easily do serious
damage to the faces of unwary travellers. My guide used his
long knife, and I met with no accident, and soon reached the
top of the pass, having left all rain and humidity at Petro-
polis. It was a curious view, and well worth some trouble to
see ; but the " difficulties and dangers " we in vain searched
for.

We arrived at Theresopolis by two o'clock, went on for
another two leagues, and put up at a quaint and lonely house
on the sierra. The boulders there had fallen all round it; they

v Highlands of Brazil 187

propped it up, and seemed to rest on its roof, and the stables
were built under one huge hanging boulder. Great trees and
all sorts of rich vegetation grew over and round these big
blocks of granite. Beyond all were the most splendid distant
views of Rio Bay and its mountains, and over our heads
strange obelisks of granite. It was a spot for an artist to
spend a life in.

Did I not paint % — and wander and wonder at everything 1
Every rock bore a botanical collection fit to furnish any hot-
house in England. Then there was a real Italian vine pergola
leading down through the banana trees to the spring, with
picturesque figures continually fetching water from it, and
troops of mules, goats, cows, and sheep always moving about ;
for the grass had failed in most parts of the mountains this
year, but was unusually abundant here. I found it hard to
leave the next day, and lingered over my work till nearly^
noon, when a gentleman came down the hill leading his horse,
and spoke to me about the view I was taking, then went on
and spoke to my guide, arranging with him that as the inn of
the place where we were to stop the night was bad, he should
take me to his house, writing at the same time a few lines to
his wife, to take with us and explain who we were. Who were
we1? And who was he1? We were both ignorant on these
subjects, but accepted his kind offer of hospitality in the frank
spirit with which it was given, and which one only meets in
remote places far from the cautious rules of civilisation, which
believes every one till properly introduced to be a rogue. We
descended the glorious road to Barrera (another spot for an artist
to settle in), rested a few hours of the extreme heat of the
day, and I worked at the view from the shady verandah. A
mad river made its noisy way through great purple and gray
boulders of granite from the strange group of mountains be-
yond, which here seemed to open themselves out like the walls
of an amphitheatre, the sharp points piercing the clouds which
formed its roof, and the whole in a state of quivering blue heat

1 88 Recollections of a Happy Life CHAP.

most difficult to represent on paper, as the intense glare of
the almost perpendicular sun's rays puzzled one. Was it all
shade ? or all light ? Flies and tiny wasps with a taste for
chemistry were anxious to ascertain what my colours were
made of, and carried various fancy tints into my wet sky, pro-
ducing effects that were startling but not artistic. The air
was heavy, and there was every appearance of a coming storm,
but none came.

At last we reached the sea, stopping every now and then
to chat at different roadside cottages, where my guide bought
different refreshments for himself, as he was always hungry
when travelling, he said. Sometimes he bought a paper of
boiled prawns very large and pink, then oranges or sweet
lemons, or a beautiful sort of cornucopia of dazzling white
made of the thinnest paste of mandioca flour rolled out and
baked ; it was a fit food for gods.

The sky was still red when we reached the little town we
were to stop at, and inquired for the address our friend had
given us. His young wife would not let us in till she had held
a long conversation with us from an upper window, which
ended in a good deal of laughing on both sides, she thinking
she could talk English, and I Portuguese, and each of us
thinking the other talked her own native tongue. But when I
was at last admitted she was most kind, and gave me her best
apartment — a cupboard inside her sitting-room. She walked
up and down the room combing her beautiful " back hair," a
mode of entertaining her guest which was certainly original.
After that she and I passed an hour or two gossiping at the
window, she constantly talking to friends in the street below,
who, like her, had lately arranged their heads most becomingly,
and stuck natural flowers behind their ears. She also sent out
and bought some cups of freshly pressed sugar and rice made
hot, which a man was crying in the street ; it was very good,
and about the consistency of barley water. After a time her
husband came home, and she left me to give him his supper,

v Highlands of Brazil 189

after which he came also to gossip at the window. I found
he was the chief of the police of that province — an educated
man of good family. He was extremely curious to know why
I was travelling alone, and painting. Did the Government
pay my expenses ? I certainly could not pay them myself, I
was too shabbily dressed for that ! I told him when I got
home I hoped to paint a picture of the Organ Mountains, and
to sell it for so much money that it would pay all my expenses ;
then at last he understood what I travelled for, for is not
money the end of all things ?

A few more hours of swamp and a most roundabout road
brought us to the foot of the Petropolis sierra, up which I
rode, though in time for the train of passengers from Bio. It
was such a glorious evening ; and while the poor animals were
resting after their thirty long dusty scorching miles of road, I
sat near some running water in the shade of a grand tree and
enjoyed a rest also, where the mason brought me a tray of
good coffee and bread, without any orders ; and for this one
kind thought alone deserves to have his name recorded —
"Jose Luis Correa." He was as good a guide as could be
wished for on such a journey, and had more than a common
knowledge of plants and other things of the country, and I
regretted much that I did not better understand his language
to benefit by his information.

In three days more I was steaming towards England. I
gave the steward a commission to buy me little singing-birds
at Bahia, and he bought nine ; they were all kept on the spare
berth in my cabin, which went by the name of Bird-Cage Walk
among the servants and children, with whom it was a favourite
lounge. I gave most of the birds to my nieces at Clifton ; and
when one died soon after, it was buried in a lozenge-box, and
half a lozenge was put in the box " in case it should wake in
the night and feel hungry." A little girl came on board at
Pernambuco who had a great talent for taming all living things.
She brought some large locusts which were devoted to her; they

i go Recollections of a Happy Life CHAP, v

came when she called, sat on her head or hand, and she made
them pretend to be dead on her hand till she counted three,
when they hopped away. It was very wonderful, considering
the short lives of such creatures, how she had tamed them ;
of course they died from want of proper food on board. A little
boy had a marmoset which he kept in a cocoanut shell, and
fed on milk ; poor little thing, it got very cold and shivered
before we landed at Southampton on the 14th of September.

CHAPTER VI

TENERIFFE — CALIFORNIA — JAPAN — SINGAPORE

1875-77

THE winter after my return from Brazil I devoted to learning
to etch on copper, Mr. Edwin Edwardes, who had illustrated
the old inns of England, kindly giving me a few lessons.
Friends seemed always accumulating round me and making life
very enjoyable. I was called down to Netley to help to nurseT
my cousin, Dudley North, who had returned from Ashantee
with three wounds and much fever, though he always main-
tained the savage who shot him was a gentleman, for he gave
a yell first to warn him of the danger. He lived through it,
thanks to the care of the doctors and the nursing of Mrs.
Deeble, the lady-superintendent there, who sat up with him
for fourteen nights. She was a wonderful woman, looking
always as if she had nothing to do, though she seldom slept
more than one hour of the twenty-four at that busy time.
Every bed in the hospital was full, the field in front also
covered with tents full of invalids, and more were constantly
coming home. I stayed about six weeks, partly at Colonel
Gordon's (the Governor), partly at a lodging over the post-
office. When my work there was over I returned home and
paid visits among my friends and relations in England, Ireland,
and Scotland, going to the meeting of the British Association
at Belfast among other things ; and after hearing Tyndall's
wonderful opening address, I heard a sermon preached on it in
a country church on the text, " It were better that man had
never been born."

192 Recollections of a Happy Life CHAP.

The winter was an unusually cold one. After the experi-
ences of the last two in Jamaica and Brazil I found it quite
unbearable, so at last I determined to follow the sun to
Teneriffe. M. E. and I started on New Year's day, 1875, in
hard frost and snow, steaming from Liverpool in a wretched
little steamer in unpleasant squally weather.

On the llth we landed for a few hours in sunny Madeira.
I had a cousin there with a sick husband, and in spite of the
marvellous beauty of all the surroundings I pitied her for
having such a number of hopeless invalids all round her. I
heard coughs and groans on every side, and saw poor bloodless
faces carried about in hammocks on men's shoulders covered
with white drapery, and looking like corpses. The other mode
of locomotion was in clumsy bullock-carts, with a driver hang-
ing on downhill and pushing uphill, continually greasing the
great wheels with bits of rag. The place was full of colour, the
gardens full of bananas and many of the bright flowers I had
seen in Jamaica, the sea deliciously clear and marvellously
varied in tints, with rich brown lava rocks in all sorts of
grotesque forms sprinkled in and out of it, hanging creepers
festooning the cliffs from innumerable pretty villa -gardens
on their tops, and splendidly-formed hills rising behind. At
sunset that same evening we saw the top of the Peak on
the golden horizon, and on the morning of the 13th we landed
at Santa Cruz.

We drove on the same day to Villa de Orotava, creeping
slowly up the long zigzags leading to Laguna, where every
one (who is anybody) goes to spend the hot summer months ;
in the New Year's time it was quite deserted, and looked as if
every other house was a defunct convent. All had a most
magnificent yellow stone-crop on their roofs, just then in full
beauty ; ferns too were on all the walls, with euphorbias and
other prickly things. After passing Laguna, we came on a
richer country, and soon to the famous view of the Peak,
described so exquisitely by Humboldt; but, alas, the palms

VI

Teneriffe 193

and other trees had been cleared away to make room for the
ugly terraces of cacti, grown for the cochineal insect to feed
on, and which did riot like the shade of other trees. Some of
the terraces were apparently yielding crops of white paper
bun-bags. On investigating I found they were white rags,
which had been first spread over the trays of cochineal eggs,
when the newly-hatched insect had crawled out and adhered
to them ; they are pinned over the cactus leaves by means of
the spines of another sort of cactus grown for the purpose.
After a few days of sunshine the little insect gets hungry and
fixes itself on the fleshy leaf ; then the rags are pulled off,
washed, and put over another set of trays. The real cochineal
cactus has had its spines so constantly pulled off by angry
natives who object to having their clothes torn, that it sees
no use in growing them any longer, and has hardly any.
When I was in Teneriffe people were beginning to say that
the gas -colours had taken all their trade away, and had
begun to root the cactus up and plant tobacco instead • but
they could not re-grow the fine trees. These cactus crops had
done another injury to the island besides that of causing it
to lose its native trees. The lazy cultivators when replanting
it, left the old plants to rot on the walls instead of burning
them, thereby causing fever to rage in places where fever had
never been before ; they were now planting eucalyptus-trees
with a notion of driving it out.

The roads were very bare, and the much-talked-of Peak
with its snow cap was spoiled for beauty by the ugly straight
line of the Hog's Back on this southern side. Nevertheless the
long slant down to the deep blue sea was exceedingly beauti-
ful, and a certain number of date-palms and dragon-trees, as
well as the euphorbia and other fleshy plants, gave a peculiar
character to the scene I have not seen elsewhere.

We found there was a hotel (and not a very bad one either, in
its own Spanish fashion), and we got possession of its huge ball-
room, which was full of crockery and looking-glasses, and some

VOL. I 0

1 94 Recollections of a Happy Life CHAP.

hundred chairs all piled up on the top of one another. This
room had glass doors, besides other rooms opening into it, but
served to sleep in well enough ; and I determined to stay and
make the best of it, for the climate and views were quite
perfect. I did stay more than a month. M. stayed a fort-
night, then went to the Smiths at Puerto, and home to
England. The people at Orotava were most friendly, the
gardens lovely. The nobles who owned them were of the very
bluest blood of old Spain ; but not rich — they seldom went out
of the island, and had kept all their old habits and fashions.
, The ladies walked about in mantillas, flirting their fans, and
wore no other costume even at their evening receptions, merely
adding some jewels, and flowers stuck most becomingly behind
their ears. They had no education beyond what they got in
some convent, but were thorough ladies. One old lady seemed
to reign supreme amongst them — the Marchesa della Florida.
She was good enough to take me under her protection, and
even asked me to come and stop in her house ; but I valued
my time too much to try such an experiment. Dr. Hooker
had given me a letter to the Swiss manager of the Botanic
Gardens, who also kept a grocer's shop. He was very kind
in taking me to see all the most lovely gardens. The famous
-• Dragon Tree, which Humboldt said was 4000 years old, had
tumbled into a mere dust-heap, nothing but a few bits of bark
remaining; but it had some very fine successors about the
island, and some of them had curious air roots hanging from
the upper branches near the trunk, which spread themselves
gradually round the surface, till they recoated the poor tree,
which had been continually bled to procure the dye called
Dragon's Blood. When the good people found my hobby for
painting strange plants, they sent me all kinds of beautiful
specimens.

After M. E. left, the landlady gave me a smaller room open-
ing into the big room with a good view into the street, where
I could live in peace and quiet, without fear of interruption,

VI

Teneriffe 195

and they fed me there very kindly too. Any one who likes
bread and chocolate can live well all over Spain ; I did not
care if I got nothing else. My friend the gardener arranged
with the farmer at the Barenca da Castro to take me in for
three days ; so I took some bread and a pillow, mounted my
donkey, and rode thither through lovely lanes, mounting over
the high cliffs till I came to my destination — an old manor-
house on the edge of one of those curious lava cracks which
run down to the edge of the sea, filled with large oaks, sweet
bay-trees, and heath-trees thirty feet high. Half-way down was
a stratum of limestone, from which a most delicious spring burst
out. People came from all the dry hills round to fetch the water,
and to wash and water their cattle. The ground was covered
with sweet violets. There were green beds of water-cresses all
about the sweet clear pools on the little theatre of green at the
mouth of the cave, and then some pretty falls to the lava rocks
on the beach some thousand feet below. People and animals
were always coming and going, and were very picturesque.
The men wore high top-boots, blankets gathered in round their
necks, and huge Eubens hats. The women had bright-coloured
shawls draped gracefully over their heads and shoulders, with
red and black petticoats ; sometimes hats on the top of their
shawl-covered heads. They were all most friendly.

My quarters at the old house above were very primitive.
A great barn-like room was given up to me, with heaps of
potatoes and corn swept up into the corners of it. I had a
stretcher-bed at one end, on which I got a very large allowance
of good sleep. The cocks and hens roosted on the beams
overhead and I heard my donkey and other beasts munching
their food and snoring below. From the unglazed window I
had a magnificent view of the Peak, which I could paint at my
leisure at sunrise without disturbing any one. The family
much enjoyed seeing me cook my supper and breakfast in my
little etna morning and evening — coffee, eggs, and soup ; soup,
eggs, and coffee, alternately. I returned by a lower road, close

196 Recollections of a Happy Life CHAP.

to the edge of the sea, under cliffs covered with sedums,
cinerarias, and other plants peculiar to the Canary Islands.

I stopped a while at the Rambla da Castra, on the sea-shore,
standing almost in the sea, surrounded by palms, bamboos,
and great Caladium esculentum. It was a lovely spot, but
too glaring. After this little excursion I remained quietly
working in or about Orotava till the 17th of February, when
I moved down to Mr. S.'s comfortable home at Puerto di
Orotava. Mr. S. when I stayed with him had a second wife,
a most lovable Scotchwoman. He was seventy years old,
and talked quite calmly of taking me up the Peak, not
minding fifteen hours on horseback; but the weather for-
tunately remained too cool for such an attempt. I believe he
knew every stone on the way, and had shown it to Piazzi
Smyth and all the travellers one after the other. The latter
gave me a letter to him.

I had a room on the roof with a separate staircase down to
the lovely garden, and learned to know every plant in that
exquisite collection. There were myrtle-trees ten or twelve
feet high, bougainvilleas running up cypress-trees (Mrs. S.
used to complain of their untidiness), great white lancifolium
lilies (or something like them), growing high as myself. The
ground was white with fallen orange and lemon petals ; and
the huge white cherokee roses covered a great arbour and
tool-house with their magnificent flowers. I never smelt roses
so sweet as those in that garden. Over all peeped the snowy
point of the Peak, at sunrise and sunset most gorgeous, but
even more dazzling in the moonlight. From the garden I
could stroll up some wild hills of lava, where Mr. S. had
allowed the natural vegetation of the island to have all its own
way. Magnificent aloes, cactus, euphorbias, arums, cinerarias,
sedums, heaths, and other peculiar plants were to be seen in
their fullest beauty. Eucalyptus-trees had been planted on
the top, and were doing well, with their bark hanging in rags
and tatters about them. I scarcely ever went out without

VI

Teneriffe 197

finding some new wonder to paint, lived a life of the most per-
fect peace and happiness, and got strength every day with my
kind friends.

The town of Puerto was just below the house, and had once
been a thriving place, some English merchants having settled
there. Now only a few half-bred children remained, entirely
Spanish in education and ways, though they talked their
fathers' tongue after their fashion. I went off with a donkey-
boy and a couple of donkeys for a week to Echod, all along
the coast, sometimes high, sometimes low, with fresh views of
the Peak up every crack. At Echod there is the best view of
all ; and a few miles above that place are forests of the Canary
pine, which is something like the Weymouth, with very fine
needles, but drawn up into slender trees of one hundred or
more feet high. Echod is a lovely old place, full of fine big
houses, with exquisite views up and down ; but it rained most
of the time. The Marchesa de la Florida had written to her
cousin the Count of Sta. Lucia, who took me to see some fine
coast-views, and insisted on walking arm-in-arm over ploughed
fields and slippery pavements at an angle of forty-five degrees,
much to my embarrassment. He was a regular Sir Charles
Grandison of politeness. Some other grandees, with terribly
long strings of names, were most hospitable, showed me their
beautiful villas and gardens at Corronel and Gorachico, and
even pressed me to stay. The latter place is built on a glacier
of black lava, and the next eruption will probably send the
whole town into the sea. It was one of the most frightful
bits of volcanic scenery I ever saw. The day I was there was
wintry and dark with storm-clouds ; the white waves ran in
between the dark rocks, and sent up great jets of foam with
an awful crashing and roaring.

Santa Cruz, to which I at first took a dislike, I found full of
beauty. Its gardens were lovely, and its merchants most hospit-
able. I stayed there till the Ethiopia picked me up, on the 29th
of April, with my friend Major Lanyon on board returning

198 Recollections of a Happy Life CHAP.

from the Gold Coast, where he had been filling the place of
Colonial Secretary.

I landed again at Madeira. There was a Mr. C. on board
with some dozen strange birds and beasts, including great
ostriches and marabouts who made nothing of swallowing pad-
locks and door-keys. Major Lanyon also had a human curiosity
in his charge — the son of King Coffee of Ashantee, whom our
Government was to educate. He was a good-natured, nicely-
mannered boy. The missionaries had already taught him how
to eat with knife and fork, etc. There was nothing savage
about him.

I got home on the 8th of May, and was soon in the full
enjoyment of a London season among good friends, exhibitions,
and concerts. On the 17th of July I went down to the most
agreeable country house I know — that of Mr. Higford Burr, at
Aldermaston. Some people I had never met before, Mr. and
Mrs. S., asked me where I was going next, and I said vaguely,
" Japan." They said, " You had better start with us, for we
are gomg there also, on the 5th of August " \ and, to their sur-
prise, I said I would. All my friends said it was so nice that
I was not going alone this time, particularly for that long
Pacific voyage ! What a pleasant time I had at Aldermaston !
Mrs. Higford Burr was the very most charming hostess in the
world, so alive and interested in every one's particular hobby,
often knowing more about it than they did themselves, with
that gentle, sympathetic manner which made even the dullest
think they were themselves agreeable. She made every one
feel at home. Naturally such a hostess was always sure of the
most pleasant company in her house. Many a delightful walk
I have had there under the great oaks and bracken (the latter
nearly as tall as myself) with some of the best talkers in
England. That time I was fool enough to slip on the polished
oak floor, when running in for a cloak, and to sprain my ankle
and knee. When I returned home I could scarcely move.
Every one said I must " see a doctor." I was not in the habit

vi Icebergs 199

of doing such a thing. I knew nobody in particular to see ;
but as my head had been full of etching lately, I thought I might
as well consult the great etcher, Seymour Haden, as any one
else. I went to him. He had gone away for a holiday ; but
his young son gave me a bandage, and told me I had had a
bad twist, that was all. (I thought I could say that as well as
he.) Then another friend came, and insisted on taking me off
to see a famous quack in Mayfair, who came in in his shirt-
sleeves, and got a big skin of wash-leather with some sticky
stuff on the soft side, which he stretched cleverly all over the
calf of my leg, from knee to ankle, told me to leave it three
days, then pull it off, wash it with sea-water, and put another
on. He gave me a bundle of skins, and told me if I wanted
more, I was to ask Mrs. C. in Japan.

So on the 4th of August 1875 I went down to stay the
night at Leasom Castle with Sir Edward and Lady Gust. The
next day I went on board the Sarmatian at Liverpool, and
found the S.s in the next cabin to myself ; and he very kindly
handed me in a cup of tea every morning when he made his
own ; for they carried every possible luxury, including canteen
and box of books, and had made more journeys in less hours
than any people living. We passed one or two hundred iceP7
bergs ; some of them were said to be as big as the rock of
Gibraltar ; some of the smaller ones came too near to be
agreeable. One night we had to tack about in a hurry, finally
dropping anchor in the fog close to a huge cliff of ice. We had
a most narrow escape, and how cold it was ! The view of
those great ice-islands at sunset was very striking, some in
deep shade, others lit up and sparkling in the sun's pink rays.
Some had bridges and arches from one to the other, while
others stood up alone like giant Memnons or steeples. We
also saw many whales playing near the ship, not half so grace-
fully as porpoises.

The lion of the ship was Lord Houghton, who was very
good company. Samuel Butler, the writer of Erewhon, was

2OO Recollections of a Happy Life CHAP.

also a passenger. He was talkative and agreeable by fits and
starts, and did not believe in anything orthodox; but was
inveigled into playing the hymn tunes on Sunday (Lord
Houghton standing up beside him and singing most devoutly).
There was also a mighty deal of heavy leaven among the
passengers — men who looked like rich butchers and wool-
collectors ; the women with odd rings on their forefingers.

Fogs delayed us at the mouth of the St. Lawrence \ we ran
aground and stayed there all night till the returning tide set
us free, and brought us safely up to the shore opposite Quebec.
We had a cold troublesome journey through the custom-
house, where my travelling companions' luggage gave them
considerable occupation ; the officers as usual did not even con-
descend to open mine. " You're a-going to paint pictures of
Japan, are you 1 Wall ! I wish you success ; I should like to
be going along too," the head-man said.

At Chicago we left the train for a night and lodged in a
marble palace full of contrarieties — mirrors, chandeliers,
whole regiments of black waiters, scaffolds, paint-pots, blue
velvet sofas, and general higgledy-piggledy. We saw all the
usual sights of that gorgeously-slovenly, machine-made, and
inflammable city, then rolled on to an older city which
interested me far more — that of the prairie-dogs. The pretty
creatures were so accustomed to the trains then, that they did
not even get up to see them pass, but basked in the sun on
the tops of their houses by hundreds and winked at them ;
some of the younger and more silly ones sat up like hares and
shook their paws at us. All that long prairie country was
fine ; there were hundreds of miles of sunflowers over it, and
continual dust. After a day or two we went through a par,ti-
cular kind of alkaline dust which rendered one's skin like
sand-paper ; the natives never attempt to wash it off, and suffer
less, we were told ; but it was difficult either to breathe or see
unless one attempted it (in the moderate way Pullman cars
allowed). The accommodation of those much -vaunted

vi Across the States 201

carriages was still open to improvement. The ventilation
at night was most ill provided for. I slept on a shelf under
Marie (Mrs. S.'s Swiss maid). If I opened the scrap of
window next my face, I was blown away and smothered with
dust ; if I shut it, I was stifled. I used to get up before the
rest, and get my washing over as I best could in the airless
little room at the end, with a stove almost red-hot and the
guard asleep on its sofa. Except once, when we had food " on
board" and a kitchen on wheels for twenty -four hours, we
used to stop twice a day for a regular feed, every person
having a dozen little hot dishes put round his plate in a semi-
circle; and one must have been very dainty indeed if one
could not find something to like amongst them. We also
stopped long enough at the other stations to pick a few
flowers; and the train always started again slowly, so that
any stragglers could catch it up. Books, newspapers, and
"goodies" were sold "on board."

At Ongar we turned aside by a branch railway and went
to Salt Lake, and had the luxury of baths and real beds for
three nights. It was to me a most unattractive and unpictur-
esque place. Mr. S. had a letter to Brigham Young, and
took us to interview him ; horrid old wretch ! my hand felt
dirty for a week after shaking hands with him.

We passed along the sides of the great Salt Lake at sun-
set ; its white edges looked really fine, backed by the purple
hills, all so bare and dreary at other times. The next stage
was in a horrible springless machine, holding an unlimited
number inside and out, trusting to tight packing for keeping
the passengers' bones unbroken by the jolting ; for the roads
were never mended, and all springs had long since become
paralysed. Mrs. S.'s Marie was soon sea-sick. " She would
be set down at the first stopping- place and go back; she
would not endure it. Could I imagine any man who had ever
been over such a road taking a lady there ! " etc., with awful
looks at poor jolted Mr. S. opposite. Mr. S. made a parlia-

2O2 Recollections of a Happy Life CHAP.

mentary speech to the honourable gentlemen outside, persuad-
ing them to change places ; so they got in while the two ladies
got out, leaving me to shake in peace the rest of the way.
I had fourteen hours of it, combined with dust an inch thick
all over everything. The next morning I got an old miner
" guard " and a horse, left Clarks at six for the " Big Trees "
of the Mariposa Grove, and had a long day's work among
them.

The whole road was beautiful, through the biggest trees of
the fir kind I ever saw, till I saw " The Trees." All the world
now knows their dimensions, so I need not repeat them ; but
only those who have seen them know their rich red plush bark
and the light green eclipse of feathery foliage above, and the
giant trunks which swell enormously at the base, having no
branches up to a third of their whole height. The little trees
with wide base and tops made by shaving and narrowing the
stem, which are to -be found in every child's Noah's Ark, are
exact models of the sequoia proportions. There were about
seven hundred in that one grove of Mariposa alone, and three
other groves within a day or two of them. They stood out
grandly against the other trees, which in themselves would be
worth a journey to see — sugar-pines, yellow-pines, and arbor
/vitae, hung with golden lichen. The forest was full of strange
trails of big bears and other wild animals. I was told that
the bear-steps were probably those of " old Joe," who had been
known " just about there " for the last twenty years, and was
a kind of Mrs. 'Arris to travellers. I was shown many of
those funny little perforated larders the woodpeckers made
for the squirrels to put their acorns in.

The descent into the Yosemite gave perhaps the very best
general view of the valley ; so I got our driver, after he had
rested his horses and dined, to give me a lift up the hill again
as far as that view, and leave me to paint it. He told Colonel
and Mrs. M., who were going on with him, that " I was one of
the right sort. I neither cared for bears nor yet for Ingins,"

VI

California 203

and he absolutely refused to take a dollar from me when I
offered it. But I had only two or three hours before dark.
I could do nothing satisfactorily. The view was " very big/
but to my taste that was its chief merit. It was like a mag-
nified Swiss valley, the gray granite cliffs looking as hard and
inharmonious as Dolomites; they were shaped like them or
like the Organ Mountains of Brazil, and even their great
height (3000 feet of sheer precipice) was dwarfed by the
enormous size of the pines on and about them. All the water-
falls were dried up, and there was dust instead of flowers. The
whole was as disagreeable as nature could be at that time of
year. It was most tantalising to pass acres of azalea plants, and
I made a vow to return in May in some future year, and stay
a while there. The next day my friends were too tired to go
beyond the verandah of the hotel ; so Marie and I mounted two
very " sorry nags " and accompanied a large party of tourists
all round the valley to the Mirror Lake (which might have
been a bit of the Tyrol), then up ladders to " Snows," a kind
of " Bel Alp " hotel, which must be quite divine in spring from
the quantity of flowers and clear water. It was a hard day's
work, and the S.s "did" the Yosemite far more comfortably,
and perhaps as profitably, and decided they had had enough
of it, and would go back to Clarks the next day.

The same driver drove us, a most villainous-looking bandit ;
but he was a real good fellow, and had taken a liking for me
because " I cared for neither bears nor Ingins," and he gave
me some rattlesnakes' tails and a great lump of bark from the
big trees, looking like a brick of solid plush. His carriage
broke down with the weight of Mrs. S.'s luggage (mere neces-
saries ! the rest having gone on to 'Frisco and £20 to pay for
extra). How the driver swore (and swearing was not of a
mild sort in California), then he turned round quite gently to
me : " Now don't you go for to take any of them lazy cattle
of guides to * The Trees ' again ; you are going a long journey,
and it's the dollars you want ; don't you waste them on such

2O4 Recollections of a Happy Life CHAP.

brutes. I'll tell Moore to give you a good old 'orse as I knows
the ways of, and show you how to loose his girths, and you
just stay and draw till you're tired, and tie 'im up and loosen
'im, and then tighten 'im again, and come 'ome quiet ; and if
you don't say nothing to nobody, nobody won't say nothing to
you ; you'll save your dollars, and that's what you want." So
I did say nothing to nobody, because I never saw anybody to
say anything to all day after the S.s went. I had a long day's
work in that lovely forest painting the huge tree called the
Great Grisly, whose first side branch is as big as any trunk in
Europe. My old horse was very quiet; but as there was
little for him to eat besides dust, I divided my luncheon
with him, and came home rather hungry. Even the scraggy
pines round "Clarks" were 170 feet high, and it was nice
wholesome quarters to rest in and work. After that I
went down to 'Frisco and became No. 794 in the Occidental
Hotel.

An old Norfolk play-fellow, E. Brereton, now an engineer
with an American wife and child, had made the whole journey
with us off and on from England ; he now looked me up, and
was most kind in showing me the lions of the big new city —
the Liverpool of the West. There was a local exhibition
going on, full of Californian works and products. The cabinet-
work was neat, also the buttons and other small things cut
from the great ear-shells of the Pacific, and in the market
which we visited at the fashionable hour (9 P.M.) we saw
magnificent grapes, apples, pears, peaches, tomatoes, egg-plants,
and all sorts of vegetables in great abundance, as well as
clams, oysters, crabs, and lobsters. There was a tearing wind,
and the streets were not agreeable ; and as all the trees had
been destroyed on the hills around, they had become scorched-
up dust-heaps. The climate was most unpleasant. The city
itself is a strange mixture of new Paris streets and Irish
hovels, with its still stranger Chinese town in one corner,
always amusing to fresh travellers from Europe. The hotel

VI

California 205

was admirably managed, with lifts to every storey, as well as
grand staircases.

In the afternoon the consul called for me with Colonel and
Mrs. M. (whom I had just seen in the Yosemite), and he
drove us on the top of a pair of spidery wheels to Cliff
House, to see the Islands of Sea-lions, or seals. Those rocky
islands were some hundred yards from the balcony of the
hotel, which had been built for the purpose of feeding and
sheltering the cockneys of 'Frisco, who often spend a " happy
day" in watching the crowds of sea-beasts through various
telescopes which are fixed for the purpose. It is easy work
and most enjoyable in the heat of the day, with the cool sea-
breezes all round, coming across the great Pacific, with no
land westward nearer than Japan. I thought if ever I had
days to spare I should like to go and lodge at that hotel and
draw there. The sea-lions came quite black and dripping out
of the water, and climbed up the rock with a series of waddles
and jerks to the very top, where they played or slept in the
sun till they became dry and coloured like real lions. They
kept up a perpetual roaring and happy murmuring sounds of
different sorts ; but on the island near them few ventured to
land. It was possessed by a variety of sea-birds of different
long-legged sorts, as well as gulls. The American Government
protects these creatures, and no boat is allowed to go near
them, or any shooting practised. A kind of park has been
laid out on the road to Cliff House, and there is a huge race-
course for trotting gigs on the way, which is the fashionable
amusement amongst the young men. Tamarisk, euphorbias,
and aloes were the chief decorations of the park.

The next day I returned and spent the day painting
at Cliff House, and the day after that I started back to
the " Summit Station," Colonel and Mrs. M. going with me as
far as Sacramento, where there was a fair at which he hoped
to see fine horses and cattle, but was disappointed. I con-
tinued in the train, which slowly climbed its 8000 feet and

2o6 Recollections of a Happy Life CHAP,

landed me at midnight at the top of the pass, in the midst of
the Nevada Mountains, and I settled for a week in a very com-
fortable railway-hotel. One could go ten miles on either side
under cover of one long snow-shed, east and west. The trains
only went through in the middle of the night, except a few
wood-trains for short distances; there was no village, so it
was a most quiet locality. My other window looked over the
bright rocks and trees and mountain-tops, with a few small
lakes here and there, like the top of some Swiss pass. The
house was still well filled with San Francisco people doing
" Vileggiatura." The food was excellent, popped corn and
^ream being the thing for breakfast. Half-an-hour's climb
took me to the highest point near, from which was a most
magnificent view of the Donner Lake below, and all its sur-
roundings. Of this I made two large sketches, taking out my
luncheon, and spending the whole day on those wild beautiful
hills, among the twisted old arbor vitae, larch, and pine trees,
with the little chipmunks (squirrels) for company, often not
bigger than large mice. The sunshine was magnificent; I
could trace the long snow-galleries and tunnels of the railway,
high along the projecting spurs of the mountains, into the far
horizon. It was a most quiet enjoyable life, with few adven-
tures beyond my cold tea being put into an unwashed Hervey-
sauce bottle one morning. I took a good drink before discover-
ing it, and did not like it, then sat down and laughed till the
tears ran out of my eyes again — that air made one feel so
happy.

My landlord drove a drag, four-in-hand, down to Lake
Tahoo most days, and at the end of the week took me on
there, driving down the steep descent to Lake Donner. We
went along the whole length of its clear shore to Truckee,
then followed the lovely clear river to its source in the great
Lake Tahoo, a most lovely spot with noble forests fringing its
sides. There was another capital wooden hotel there, where I
could work again in peace. Behind the house were noble

L

VI

California 207

trees, fast yielding to the woodman's axe; huge logs were
being dragged by enormous teams of oxen, all smothered
in clouds of dust. They made fine foregrounds for the
noble yellow pines and cypress-trees, with their golden lichen.
The M.s picked me up there again, and after going round
the lake in the little steamer we disembarked on the east
side, and took a carriage with a driver who has been made
famous by Mark Twain. We followed one long shoot of
floating wood-logs for a mile or more, all tumbling over one
another on the rushing water till one felt one must go too ; it
would be impossible to stand over it and watch the moving
mass without throwing oneself in.

Two hours' rail at the end of this drive took us up the
hills to Virginia City. The last half-hour of the ascent was\
through and over a continual succession of human beehives,,
surrounding all kinds of extraordinary machinery and gigantic
mole-hills. All the hills were entirely bare of tree or verdure ;
nothing but salmon-coloured dust below and smoke above.
Virginia City itself is just the surroundings of one big mine.
There was gambling going on in every house ; only one man
who did not gamble was to be found there, they said — the
canny Scotch manager of the mine. He showed us everything
the next day, from the rough ore as it came up at the head of
the mine to the great bricks and bars of pure silver taken out
of the red-hot furnace by men whose work meant certain
death to them, but who were never difficult to procure, from
the enormous wages they got. The Colonel went down the
mine while I sketched above ; then we returned down the hills
to Carson City, supped, and walked about the streets, looking
in at the windows and watching the eager faces of the gam-
blers till midnight, when my friends went on east, I west, back
to the Summit Hotel, which I reached at four in the morning.
There were rough people in the train, but they were always
good and civil to me, and gave me a couple of seats to myself.
The landlord's little daughter took me the next day to see her

208 Recollections of a Happy Life CHAP.

lake, a lake that no one could find unless she showed the way, she
said. She had a swing there, between two trees ; ari^l I tried
to paint her, for she was a rare child, very beautiful, and not
more than six years old. She knew all the birds' notes, and
imitated them so well that the birds answered her, and she
called up all kinds of pretty echoes for my entertainment.

After a few days I left at four in the morning, descended
to Stockton, and by another line to Milton, thence by stage to
Murphy, which I did not reach till nine at night in the dark.
My driver was a very peculiar character. Every one called him
" the Colonel," and chaffed him, but he never said a word. I
asked him some questions, but I only got grunts in return. He
dropped letters into all sorts of odd post-receptacles — hollow
trees and baskets slung to branches in lonely places ; and so
we went on to our journey's end. When, after washing some
of the dust off my face and hands, I came down to have some
supper, behold, " the Colonel " also appeared in a white waist-
coat and dress coat, the very essence of conversational polite-
ness ! The landlord and his daughter, who waited, treated
him with every respect. He ordered them about as if he were
a very great man, told me all sorts of interesting things about
ythe country, and volunteered to get me a giant trap-door
spider's nest before I returned.

The next morning I drove on to Calaveras Grove, found
myself the last guest of the season in the comfortable hotel
under the big trees, and stayed there a week. That was indeed
luxury, to be able to stroll under them at sunrise and sunset
without any delay or trouble. A stag with great branching
horns was my only companion ; he had a bell round his neck,
and used generally to live in front of the house, but liked
human company; and when I appeared with my painting
things he would get up and conduct me gravely to my point
and see me well settled at work, then scamper off, coming
back every now and then to sniff at my colours. One of my
first subjects was the great ghost of a tree which had had a

VI

California 209

third of its bark stripped off and set up in the Crystal Palace ;
the scaffolds were still hanging to its bleached sides, and it
looked very odd between the living trunks of red plush on
either side. The sugar-pines were almost as large, and even
more beautiful than the sequoias, their cones often a foot
long, and so heavy that they weighed down the ends of the
branches, making the trees look like Chinese pagodas in shape.
They are called sugar-pines from the white sweet gum which
exudes from the bark, and drops on the ground like lumps of
brown sugar ; it is much eaten by the Indians. The cones of
the " Big Trees " were small in proportion. About six miles
from the Calaveras Grove was another with 1300 big trees in it.
I rode there one day on an old cart-horse, and found that one
hollow tree was used as a house by an old trapper. He was
out, but his dogs strongly protested against any entrance in
his absence. On a tree near were a quantity of rat and other
skins. I was told that he had probably eaten the animals, and
was not over-particular as to how he lived. He had been there
three years, cut sticks and nick-nacks of "Big Tree" wood
to sell, then, when he had made a little money, he would have
a regular drinking-bout and drink it all up. My guide to
those trees was an Alsatian who had left his country to avoid
the Prussian conscription ; he said many of his friends had
run away for the same purpose to America, and never meant
to go home to do soldiering for the Germans.

My time was up, and I had to go back to civilised life. At
Murphy I heard a thump on my door at four o'clock, and
" the Colonel's " voice shouted out the hour ; and while I was
swallowing my coffee downstairs, I heard his voice outside in
the street : " What, you there, Jim ? " — " Yes, I heard the
lady was a-going down the valley ; I thought I should like to
come and see her off comfortable." Though this was said by
the most ragged specimen of a live scarecrow I ever saw, I
felt nattered by being particularised by the definite article and
so bracketed with "the trees" and "the valley," the two

VOL. I p

2io Recollections of a Happy Life , CHAP.

greatest things Jim knew. The Colonel said nothing, but he
took his carriage and two horses short cuts over the country,
so as to avoid the road as much as possible, driving between two
trees with not an inch to spare on either side, and making his
horses go on each side of some tree stump only an inch lower
than the floor of the carriage, then turning to me with a grunt
of satisfaction. So I thought I would talk though he wouldn't,
and told him how the Stockton railway-people had objected to
giving me checks for my baggage because, they said, " it was too
small and too heavy to hold wearing-apparel, and they only
checked wearing-apparel." I asked him if he could check them
straight to 'Frisco. At this he threw off silence and became ex-
cited : " Oh, they was nasty, was they 1 Like 'em, damn'm.
You just give me your check, don't you say nothing; I'll settle
'em, I will; they was nasty, was they? — like 'em;" and he con-
tinued this at intervals till we reached Milton, when he put me
into a carriage, then stalked off after the luggage, handed me
in the checks to San Francisco just as the train was going,
stalked off again, and I heard the same refrain fading in the
far distance : " They was nasty, was they ? — like 'em, d — 'em."

I saw a good many Indians about the country at different
times and in different places. They were the lowest of low
types of humanity. The Eepublic allows them just money
enough to drink themselves to death easily on, and they do
that, and nothing else. They collected acorns in the summer,
and buried them in the ground by way of storing them ; then
they made stones hot in the fire, dropped the acorns on them,
and covered them over with earth, which took the bitter out
of them and made them not bad. This was, I believe, the
principal food that these poor wrecks lived on.

I had met at Lake Tahoo an old lady, Mrs. E., and her
daughter, who invited me to go and see them near San
Eafael, on the north of the harbour of San Francisco, which
is like an inland sea, the Golden Gates at its mouth not being
half a mile broad. Ferry-boats go across in all directions,

VI

California 2 1 1

some of them floating palaces, some humble market steamers.
The city itself is built on a sandbank close to the sea and the
Golden Gate. The little ferry for San Eafael gave me fine
views of the harbour as it went along close to the north-west
shore, where I could see the sea-lions playing on the rocks in
abundance. Then I took the railroad and went northward,
till I reached the station I had been told to make for. It was
a perfectly isolated building, and I asked the guard for Mrs.
R's. " Wall, do you mean the young or the old un ? The
old un ? Then you just be spry, run and catch up the train
again, and ask the guard to set you down at the old un's
gate." Which I did, and in ten minutes more was " set down "
at an avenue of deodaras, walked up to a pretty little country-
house, and had a warm welcome from a very dear old Scotch
lady and her daughter. Her husband had been one of the
first settlers in California. She had no wish to return to her
native land, and lived much the same sort of life old ladies live
in the country at home.

I was very anxious to see some of the red-wood forests.
They had been so destroyed that it was not easy to get to
them, but the village doctor gave me a letter of introduction
to the head woodman of an estate, some two or three hours up
the northern line of rail, who took me to his house to sleep.
It was only a small hut of logs, but they had a spare room,
and made me very welcome. The wife was a capital woman.
She gave us a wonderful supper of eggs, ham, cakes, apple-
tart and cheese (together), and good tea. Her children were
pictures of health. She came from New England, and com-
plained of the dulness, but otherwise was well off. The red-
wood trees are all about those hills, and are more like silver-fir
than the other sequoias. My host took me some miles up a
side valley to see some which were fifteen feet in diameter, and
nearly 300 feet high. They were gradually sawing them up
for firewood, and the tree would soon be extinct. Its timber
is so hard that it sinks in water, and no worm can eat it there.

212 Recollections of a Happy Life CHAP.

It is invaluable for many purposes, and it broke one's heart to
think of man, the civiliser, wasting treasures in a few years to
which savages and animals had done no harm for centuries.
I settled myself to sketch near a " bear's bath," hoping to see
the big beast come and wash himself, but he didn't. I saw
two pretty little deer and numbers of squirrels and birds,
then walked back, and, after more apple-tart and cheese, was
put on the engine of a wood train, as the passenger train had
gone by some hours before. My engine was driven by a very
intelligent young man, who had gone on an exploring expedi-
tion once over the Yellowstone country, and told me much
about it. I had a very good time on that fire-eating beast, the
engine. What a lot of wood it consumed while pulling up
that steep ascent ! After that we let the fire go out, and
descended by our own weight alone. We stopped very often,
and it was late before I got back to Mrs. R's. When I tried
to slip a couple of dollars into the engineer's hands, he coolly
opened my bag and put them inside. " Just you keep them
things till you want 'em, and shake hands again to show you
don't mind my saying so," he said ; " the talk he had had with
me had done him real good, and he didn't want pay."

On the 16th of October I took possession of a splendid,
large, airy cabin in the Oceanic, one of the finest steamers afloat,
fitted up in the most luxurious way, with an open fireplace in
a corner of the great saloon, which we were very glad of after
the first week, as we went by the northern route, which was
too cool for pleasure. We also had a superabundance of head-
winds, and did not get on as fast as our captain wished. I
used occasionally to think that we had more dead Chinamen
\ on board than was altogether agreeable to our noses, every ship
being obliged to take a certain number of these strange
people's bodies back to their beloved fatherland. All the
waiters belonged to the same nation, and everything was well
managed. Quite a cosy party gathered round the English fire-
place, one lively little lady, in the tightest of dresses and

VI

Japan 213

highest of heeled boots, being the life and pet of every one.
She made toffee and sang songs, took fits of hysterics, and was
continually entertaining the party in some way or other. At
the end of the voyage a huge bouquet was cut out by the cook,
of turnips and carrots framed in the leaves of a large cabbage,
with its stalk tied up in white frilled paper ; and the captain
presented it on his knees with a speech learned by heart, as a
testimony of gratitude from all of us. Three weeks without\
seeing land at all is a long time, and latterly I suffered much
from an attack of my old pain, brought on by the cold.

We jumped in one day from the 28th to the 30th of
October, and at daylight on the 7th of November found our-
selves within sight of Fujiyama. I watched the sun rise out
of the sea and redden its top, as I have seen so well repre-
sented on so many hand-screens and tea-trays. The mountain
is a much steeper cone than Teneriffe or Etna, but has about
the same quantity of snow on it. The coast is beautifully
varied with ins and outs, islands and rocks, the cliffs every-
where fringed with trees and higher than I expected to see
them, the water of the clearest aquamarine colour. It was a
real sight to see the boats which surrounded us from all sides
filled with tiny men in the oddest dresses, some looking like
the straw umbrellas they put over beehives, some in strange
stripes and checks, some in no clothes at all, or next to none,
but all good-humoured and sensible, with their funny tufts of
back-hair turned over their bald crowns, like clowns in panto-
mimes, and all their ways of doing things so unlike the ways
of the rest of the world. A boat's crew rowing or pushing,
not together, but one man forward and the next back, with a
jerky yet graceful movement, and curious subdued puffs and
grunts which are not disagreeable or inharmonious to hear,
though reminding one of small steam-engines — hupp, hupp,
hupp, hupp, I can hear it still going in my head. Some of my
ship friends landed with me. We drove out into the country, and
took funny cups of yellow tea in a bamboo tea-house, with five

214 Recollections of a Happy Life CHAP.

pretty girls rather over four feet high, in chignons with huge
pins, blackened teeth, and no eyelashes, laughing at us all the
while. We saw the sunset on the white cliffs of Mississippi
Bay, and all the funny little people manuring and watering
their tea-gardens and cabbages.

The next morning I saw my friends off. The big ship de-
parted, and I returned to the hotel at Yokohama — a sort of mon-
grel establishment, with neither the cleanliness of Japanese nor
the comforts of English life. Mrs. 0. soon found me out, and
instead of my wanting more of my quack's clever plasters, I
gave her the rest of my own supply, as my sprain had long
ago recovered itself. As Sir Harry and Lady Parkes were
said to be soon going away on an expedition round the coast, I
started to pay my respects to them at eight in the morning.
The railway went alongside of the famous Tokado road much
of the way to Yedo, and was always full of interest. The rice
and millet harvest was then going on, and the tiny sheaves
were a sight to see. They piled them up against the trees
and fences in the most neat and clever way, some of the
small fan -leaved palm-trees looking as if they had straw
petticoats on. There was much variety in the foliage ; many
of the trees were turning the richest colours, deep purple
maples and lemon -coloured maiden -hair trees (Salisburia), with
trunks a yard in diameter. The small kind of Virginian
creeper (Ampelopsis) was running up all the trees. These
seemed generally dwarfed, except round the temples, which
were marked all over the country by fine groves of camphor,
cryptomeria, cedars, and pine-trees, as well as a small variety
of bamboo. The little houses were excessively neat, and had
beds of lilies growing on their roofs. Every single dwelling
was a picture, exquisitely finished and ornamented, though all
on such a miniature scale. Many of the town houses were
built of black mud, which was fireproof, and looked like
polished black marble, the shutters and doors being made to
fit close with the greatest precision and security.

VI

Japan 215

At the last station one of the Japanese ministers got into
our carriage in the costume of a perfect English gentleman,
chimney-pot hat included. He invited me to come and see
his wife at his country-house, and at Yedo packed Miss C.
and myself into two jinrickshas, a kind of grown-up perambu-
lator, the outside painted all over with marvellous histories
and dragons (like scenes out of the Eevelation). They had
men to drag them with all sorts of devices stamped on their
backs, and long hanging sleeves. They went at a trot, far
faster than English cabs, and answered to the hansoms of
London, but were cheaper. So we trotted off to the Tombs of
the Shoguns, most picturesque temples, highly coloured and
gilded, half buried in noble trees, under a long low ridge or
cliff. We left our cabs, and wandered about amongst them
attended by a priest, a wretched mortal who would have sold
even Buddha himself for a few cents if he dared run the risk of
being found out. We then mounted the ridge above, and
went to a famous tea-garden on the site of an old temple, with
grand views over the city and sea, where we had tiny cups
(without handles) full of yellow sugarless tea, ate all sorts of
delicate cakes made out of rice and bean flour, finishing up
with cherry-flower tea, which is made by pouring boiling
water on dried blossoms and buds of the cherry-tree. The
smell was delicious, the taste only fit for fairies, and very hard
for big mortal tongues to discover. The tiny girls who served
us were very pretty, and merry over our gigantic and clumsy
ways. I felt quite Brobdingnagian in Japan.

We descended by a hundred steps, and were trotted on
again and entered the Mikado's domain, round the outer wall
of which ran a moat full of lotus lilies (Nelumbium\ not what
we in England call lotus, but the real Indian lily with its tulip-
like pink flowers and flat, high-stemmed leaves. They were
then in seed, and the seed is eaten by all the Pacific natives.
Thousands of wild-fowl were swimming among the plants. I
just missed seeing the Mikado by three minutes, his English

216 Recollections of a Happy Life CHAP.

brougham passing out of the gates just before we reached
them, and though my biped took to galloping, we could not
catch him up. He was surrounded by a company of cavalry
in semi-European dress.

The English Legation was very new and very ugly, with
many rare and beautiful Japanese and Chinese things in it,
but the master and mistress of the house so genuine in their
kindness and hospitalities, that one forgot the ugly shell.
They kindly offered to take me with them in the Government
steamers to inspect lighthouses all round the coast, thus giving
me opportunities of seeing parts of the islands never visited
by Europeans, taking a month or more to do it in. It was a
great chance, but alas ! that same night, on my return, I had a
terrible attack of pain, so fearful that I sent for an American
doctor, who injected morphia into my arm, and put me to
sleep for twenty-four hours. The people in the hotel thought
I was dead, and when I woke I was too weak to think of
starting on any expedition for some time. My room was
sunny, with a window from which I could see the river and
bridge close by, continually crowded with people, who looked
as if they had walked out of a fairy-tale, and a beautiful hill
of trees and quaint houses on the other side. The climate in
November was colder than suited me, out of doors. The
camellia-trees were covered with bloom some twelve or twenty
feet high, and chrysanthemums were in abundance in all the
gardens. Mrs. 0. sent down her " boy " with another about
sixty who " speakit English a leetle," and wanted to be my
" boy." His name was Tungake. As I heard no ill of him I
engaged him, and whenever I looked at him he put his hands
on his knees and slid them down to his ankles, and grinned.
He was very useless, and anxious to make little percentages
out of every bargain ; but the language was so impossible to
make anything of in a short time, that I could not have done
without some such attendant.

After a few days' quiet, I started in the steamer for Kobe*,

VI

Japan 217

another of the European settlements of Japan — a pretty place
on a quiet bay of the sea, with high hills behind it, and
an interesting temple, at the entrance of which was a shed
with a white horse in it of a peculiar breed, with blue eyes
and pink nose, and hoofs turned up from want of exercise.
This horse was kept in case God came down and wanted a
ride. Plates of beans are put on a table near, with which
pious people feed the horse as they pass in, dropping some
money into a box at the same time to pay for them. A stuffed
horse is kept in another shed close by, to be ready, in case the
holy beast should die, to fill his place, and not disappoint the
equestrian Deity. The entrance-arch of that temple was fes-
tooned with wistaria, the whole being shaded by a monstrous
camphor-tree and cryptomerias. There was also a candle-tree
loaded with yellow berries, with tufts of scarlet-leaved sumach
grafted on it for ornament. Further on there was a winding
road leading high into the hills, with some beautiful cascades
and temples, and plenty of tempting little tea-houses at every
beautiful point of view. Many had miniature gardens on
tables in front, with dwarfed pine-trees under a foot high,
perhaps fifty years old, rockwork, bridges, lakes, fountains,
and rivers — everything in proportion, and the whole covering
a space of not more than a yard square ! The people seemed
pleased to have them admired, and brought out their tiny cups
of yellow tea, without seeming to expect pay for them.

Kobe was a very sociable place. Lady Parkes was not sorry
to make me an excuse for escaping its heavy luncheons and
dinners, and we started by rail for Osaka, where we took
jinrickshas, with a tandem running in front, and trotted about
ten miles to the valley of Minbo, famous for its maples. The
hills were perfectly on fire with its different tints of red,
crimson, scarlet, and every shade of carnation, even the
different purples. We left our jinrickshas at the beginning of
the valley, walked up by a winding path through the trees,
with little chapels on all the most picturesque points of the

2 1 8 Recollections of a Happy Life CHAP.

road (as they have in Roman Catholic countries of Europe).
Picturesque gateways, temples, and steps were hidden among
these gorgeous trees, while peeps of the hills and distant plain
were seen through them at every turn. Our luncheon was
spread out in the priests' parlour. I spent a vast quantity of
madder and carmine in trying to imitate that which could not
be imitated, after which we all returned to Osaka.

Lady Parkes and her two A.D.C.S went back to endure a
state dinner at Kobe', while I made my way to the inn (kept
by a Frenchman), appointing to meet Sir Harry and his party
at the railway at nine the next morning. I started first from
end to end of that vast city in order to pay a visit to Mr.
Frank Dillon, the artist, who was staying with his son at the
Mint in a regular English-looking house. I had no idea of the
distances, and had but little time to spend on my visit ; only a
most bewildering rush through the streets, my frantic biped
howling and shouting all the way, and flinging off his drapery
till he appeared in a complete suit of tattooing and nothing
else, one great serpent winding round his right leg, round his
body, and down his left arm to the hand, on the back of which
its head was painted. The Osaka streets were crowded with
people, and the shops were full of things I longed to examine.
We passed over many bridges, and the rivers below seemed as
full of life as the land was.

We started with our luggage in fifteen jinrickshas, with
two men in each, one in the shafts and one running tandem in
front. They trotted over thirty miles that day. As they got
heated they peeled off their draperies and flung them into our
carriages, leaving nothing on but a bit of rag from the waist,
and a very decent allowance of tattooing all over. They never
got in the least tired, but did the last part of the way up the
High Street of Kioto at a gallop after nearly seven hours of
hard running. The road was generally very narrow ; the
bridges, placed at right angles to it, rather steep up and down
and without parapets, were very disturbing to one's nerves, as

VI

Japan 219

the men never broke their pace, but swung one on and across
and round again in one even jog. First went the ubiquitous
landlord of the Kioto hotel, then Lady P., then myself, Sir
Harry, young L., Mr. G-., and Mr. A. (the great Japanese
scholar), then the Chinese valet and Tungake, and six more
jinrickshas of luggage. "Wild yells were given at every sharp
turn and bad bit of road or steep bridge by No. 1, and echoed
by the rest of the men. One of them, with highly-illuminated
legs in the rarest mediaeval style, ran backwards and forwards
like a dog, keeping the line straight. We passed through the
richest cultivation — rice, tea, buckwheat, cotton, mulberries,
bamboos, camellias twenty feet high, full of single pink and
white blossoms. Oranges, persimmons, and Japan medlars
seemed the common fruits. The little houses were models of
neatness, with their bamboo frames, paper windows, and little
stacks of rice straw piled round them as extra padding to keep
out cold. Everything was arranged daintily and prettily.
Mats were spread on the ground in front of the houses, with
rice drying on them ; and every now and then a group of noble
trees showed us where some temple was hidden. The place
where we stopped for our half-hour of rest was on a bend of
the great river, and the rooms of the tea-house were supported
on poles over the water, so that we could watch the loaded
barges going up and down it.

Before dusk we were in the long suburbs of the old capital
of the Tycoon. Our men went faster and faster, till they
nearly galloped us up the long High Street and steep ascent
to the hotel ; and soon after the Governor of Kioto (in cordu-
roys and shooting- jacket, and about four and a half feet high)
appeared to pay his respects to Sir Harry and beg us all to go
and dine with him. His Excellency begged to be excused, but
promised to have luncheon with him the next day at a tea-
house the other side of the valley, for the Governor was
starting on an official journey, and that would be on his way.
His official interpreter also came to pay his respects — a gentle-

22O Recollections of a Happy Life CHAP.

man who spoke good English and was our guide during the
days the Ambassador stayed. He promised to be my " Pro-
tector and Pass " when Sir Harry left, which nearly set me
laughing most uncivilly, the little man being quite Liliputian,
and much embarrassed with a European beard and moustache.
It was also " the thing " not only to speak indistinctly but to
put the hand before your mouth while doing it. The bows of
ceremony were endless. Whenever Sir Harry looked at a
Japanese he bent double, with the hands sliding down from
knees to ankles, like machines. We worked hard next day, and
saw many wonderful temples and palaces all of wood, with
a beautiful concave curve in their overhanging roofs. Inside
they were richly gilded and painted, with pine-trees, storks,
flowers, and people, on a gold ground. The temples were full
of exquisite bronzes, china, and fresh flowers.

We drove out to the Governor's luncheon party at the tea-
house, which had one side of the room quite open towards a
pretty garden and a clear view. On the table were vases of
chrysanthemums, tied on all the way up sticks a yard high, so
as to show all the flowers and hide the stalks. The ornaments
were of rare old Satsuma porcelain ; the food which came from
our hotel, being of the knife-and-fork order, not interesting.
After luncheon we took leave of the Governor and pulled up
the river, getting out where the valley narrowed to walk along
its banks. I saw the leaves of Primula, sinensis and ferns, but
there were few flowers at that season. We also saw many
lovely kingfishers.

We all went in a string of jinrickshas to the lake of Biwa,
going through a long street full of china -shops, where the
modern cream-coloured porcelain was exhibited which is sold
in Europe as Satsuma. The paintings of birds, insects, and
flowers on it are exquisite, though it is extremely cheap. We
met fishermen trotting along with great bundles of fish slung
on the ends of bamboos over their shoulders, and fruit-carriers
with brightly-polished orange persimmons, making the real

VI

Japan 221

oranges near them look quite dull. We climbed up a steep
ascent and through a mountain gorge to visit several groups of
fine temples in magnificent groves of cryptomerias, one of
them being built like a Chinese pagoda. All had delicious
views of the great blue lake of Biwa, with the town of Otsu
spread out like a map on its shores. Close to the water's edge
was a huge pine-tree, its branches trained from childhood so
much in the way it should go, that the top of it resembled a
bed of well-clipped turf. This tree shaded a quarter of an
acre of ground.

We went on along the edge of the lake to its southern
corner, where the river Yodo flows out, crossed by two
really magnificent bridges divided by an island, over which
the great Tokaido road is taken, turned up the hill-side
between strange gates and figures, then up magnificent stone
steps to the great temple of Isbyama, one of the most holy
in Japan. The buildings, though less ornamented, were
more elegant than most of the temples I had seen ; they were
supposed to be of unknown age. Prosy, realistic travellers
put them down as having been built in the twelfth century,
which is no great age after all. The rocks were piled about
and planted, as were the flowers and shrubs, with infinite
taste and care, the views everywhere most lovely. Below the
temples were the houses for pilgrims. The next day Sir"
Harry and Lady Parkes and their suite departed, leaving me
in sole possession, with a special order from the Mikado to
sketch for three months as much as I liked in Kioto, provided
I did not scribble on the public monuments or try to convert
the people ; for it was still a closed place to Europeans.

Sir Harry himself had been nearly murdered on his last
visit there, and Sir Kutherford Alcock was never even allowed
to enter. But I was perfectly safe all alone, and comfortable
too, in the old temple building some centuries old, which had
been turned into an hotel for Europeans, with the addition of
a few chairs and tables. It was kept by a Japanese named

222 Recollections of a Happy Life CHAP.

Julei, who was always dressing himself up in native or European
costumes, the latter being of a monstrous plaid pattern, with
a prodigious watch-chain and breast-pin. He spoke a little
English and kept a French cook. My room was made of
paper, with sliding-panels all round, two sides opening to the
frosty air and balcony, the other two only going up about
seven feet, leaving abundant ventilation between them and the
one great roof of the whole house, with the advantage of hear-
ing all my neighbours' conversation beyond. I had a pan of
lighted charcoal on a chair to warm me, and two quilted cotton
counterpanes on the bare floor to sleep between. When I
complained of cold, they brought me in gorgeous folding-
screens, and made quite a labyrinth around me, all painted
with storks, cherry-blossom, bamboo, and all sorts of lovely
things, to keep the draughts out. The worst of my quarters
was that I could not see through the paper windows to paint
without opening them and letting in the half-frozen air or
damp rain ; but I much preferred my quiet life in Kioto
among the purely Japanese people and picturesque buildings,
to that in one of the European settlements.

One of the screens in my room was especially beautiful. It
had a gold ground with red and white pinks, and pink and
white acacia painted in the most lovely curves on it, as well
as two kingfishers and a stork. There was also most fascinat-
ing crockery. One large creamy and crackled vase of modern
Satsuma had beetles, grasshoppers, mantis, and moths carry-
ing flowers, drawing a coach, holding mushrooms as umbrellas,
etc., as well as lovely borderings of flowers and leaves. In
that vase were chrysanthemums of different colours, tied on
an invisible bamboo stick, so that the bouquet was a yard and
a half high. From my windows, when I pushed back the paper
sliding shutter, I saw a most exquisite view (for the house
was perched up high on the side of the hill, with the most
lovely groves and temples all over it), and below the great
city of over 200,000 inhabitants. Nearly all the houses were

vr

Japan 223

one-storeyed, and great high temple-roofs rose among them like
Gulliver amongst the Liliputians. Beyond the city were beauti-
ful purple hills with tops sprinkled with fresh snow. A most
eccentric garden was in the immediate foreground and all j
round the house. The top of one of the favourite trained pine-
trees came up like a terrace of flat turf to the level of the
balcony ; it looked so solid that I could almost have walked
over it. Groups of gray boulders, and small clipped azaleas,
heaths, and camellias, with many other flowers and small tufts
of pampas-grass and bamboo, filled the rest of the garden,
varied by little miniature lakes and canals. The drawback to
me was the cold, which was intense at night. The charcoal
pans (most classically shaped) were a poor substitute for fires,
but the ventilation and draughts of the rooms were so great
that one was in no risk of suffocation from the fumes.

There were six Europeans in Kioto including myself — a
German engineer and his sub, a clever Prussian doctor, and a
lady who was paid by the Mikado to teach forty Japanese
girls Lindley Murray and the English language (!), with her
husband, who was a sporting character.

The great temples of Nishihongwangi belonged to a set of
reformed Buddhists. One of them, who called himself the
" Canon of the Cathedral," had been two years in England,
and spoke our language remarkably well. He was really a
most charming person, and gave me much interesting talk
about his religion while I sketched. He called it the Protest-
antism of Japan, and it seemed as pure and simple as a
religion could be. He said he believed in an invisible and
powerful God, the Giver of good, but in nothing else — not even
the sun or the moon, they were both made by that same God.
His priests (including himself) married, and drank wine. He
had been to hear all sects preach in England, and thought the
Unitarian most like his own. There were no sort of idols in
his temple. He introduced me to many old priests in gorgeous
robes, who did not look as full of brains as he did. He had

224 Recollections of a Happy Life CHAP.

a table brought out beside me with tea and cake, and a pan
of charcoal to warm my hands over, and took the greatest
interest in my work. He gave me two of the usual conven-
tional drawings of a woman and a piece of bamboo, done by
his little daughter. The mile of street which led me home
was one succession of fascinating shops. I never passed
through any of those streets without picking up some beauti-
ful little "curios." The hill behind the hotel was covered
with temples, tombs, and bells, some of them very large. The
great bell of the Cheone was eighteen feet in height, and made
a fine subject, surrounded as it was by trees dressed in their
autumn colours. Whenever any one felt devout, he used to
go and strike one of those bells, by means of a kind of weighted
battering-ram fastened to the scaffold which supported the
bell (for they are generally hung in buildings by themselves).
Through all the dark hours of the night these devout fits seemed
to seize people, and did not improve the sleep of others on
that hill of temples.

Horses were rare sights in Kioto. I saw only one man
riding. His horse had its tail in a blue bag, tied up with red
tassels, its mane tied with the same colour. He went on at
an ambling jog. The post-boxes were in the corners of the
streets, and stamps were put on the letters in the usual Euro-
pean way ; but they were carried afterwards in square boxes
hung on the two ends of bamboos, and balanced on men's
shoulders. These men ran day and night over their appointed
number of miles, finding relays waiting to shoulder the bamboo
and continue running without losing a single moment, or
breaking the sing-song chant which it is the exclusive privilege
of postmen to sing. On our journey up, our jinricksha men
had begun singing it, and had been stopped by some officials,
who said it was against the laws for any one but the postman
to sing that song.

The Japanese are like little children, so merry and full of
pretty ways, and very quick at taking in fresh ideas ; but they

VI

Japan 225

don't think or reason much, and have scarcely any natural
affection towards one another. Everybody who has lived long
among them seems to get disgusted with their falseness and
superficiality. One never sees a mother kiss or caress her
baby. The poor little thing is tied on to the back of a small
sister in the morning in a well-padded bundle, and tumbles
about with her all day, roaring piteously. People only laugh
if one pities it.

As I sat at work, plenty of people came to look at me; but
they never got in my way or between me and the place I was
sketching. They always seemed to understand what I was
about. The women were very merry, but pretty and lady-
like in their ways. The young men, with their attempts at
European clothing and manners, were comical with their great-
coats and wideawakes over petticoats and pattens. Like
Tungake, when they spoke to people they considered inferior,
they used a most guttural tone of voice, and I used to fancy
strangulation must ensue after much of it. His delight was to
get the " boy " of the hotel to carry his lantern or go errands
for him ; he never did anything himself if he could help it.
Then he would put on his coarse, patronising tone, and spin
yarns to the " boy," who made bows and laughed at his jokes,
and jerked out "heh" continually.

The Doctor and Mrs. W. came for me one evening in the
full moonlight, and took me in a third jinricksha to the
Kyrinitza Temple, upon a height in a lovely nook of the hills,
backed by fine trees. All the quaint gates and porticoes stood
out grandly, as well as the city below, almost as clearly seen
as in the daytime. And the effect of the white light among
the crowded pillars of the temple ought to have been very
fine, only the moon did not look that way at that hour — a fact
the Doctor was much vexed at having forgotten. He proposed
to wait ; but we shivered, and begged to be excused. There
is something magnificent in the simplicity of those wooden
temples, entirely without paint outside, the great round pillars

VOL. I Q

226 Recollections of a Happy Life CHAP.

showing all the colour and grain of the wood. Inside they are
gilt, full of rich things and colour, with quite a Byzantine
look I made a study of the great Cheone Temple in its
almost too dark interior. The priests delighted in watching
me, and were most eager over my progress. Their ways were
funny. At twelve every day they carried little boxes of
lacquer, containing cups of hot tea and rice, to the different
altars, one of them beating a gong or other musical (?) instru-
ment. Tungake said, "Him tell God tiffin ready." They
hardly left the food long enough to cool, but took it away and
ate it themselves. The Shinta temples were red, and full
of all sorts of idols. There are many different degrees of
Buddhism, the highest of which appears a very reasonable reli-
gion. After our moonlight expedition that night, we returned
to dine with the Doctor, whose little dinners would have been
thought extra nice in Paris or London. Mrs. W. lived quite
in the country. After sketching all day amongst the dead
leaves, and morning white frosts, I used to be scarcely able to
stand from stiffness and coming rheumatism, and had to hold
on by a tree at first, till I could use my feet. Then I often
tramped off through the temple gardens and fields, to pay her
a visit, and restore circulation if I could. She also would keep
me to dinner, and send me home in her own jinricksha.

The upper classes seem to have melted away in Japan since
the new state of things there, though it is supposed that some
of the Princes of the Tycoon still sulk in the country amongst
the hills. One day Mr. W. sent me his own jinricksha man
and two others, to run double tandem, and they hauled me up
to the top of the highest mountain in the neighbourhood, from
whence I had magnificent views all over the lake of Biwa as
well as the city. It was white with snow and frost at the top,
and too cold to stay long. At the foot of the hill were many
pilgrimage -temples, with those curious gates, their tops like
inverted bows, whose origin I had never succeeded in making
out Some said they were copied from the top of a tent, and

VI

Japan 227

the droop of its canvas between two poles. Some said they
were intended for birds to rest on. They were never wider
than one stone, which often rested simply on two other upright
ones, but it was always hollowed out in the same curve. We
passed through hundreds of stone lanterns also, a peculiarity
of Japanese temples. We saw people washing vegetables in
the streams, with a small wooden tub for each foot to stand
in, in the water, having loops in them for the great toe to go
into. Thus they could patter about without wetting their feet
in the shallow streams. They usually walked on pattens, and
had many falls, which were highly amusing to all the spec-
tators, who went into roars of laughter at their misfortunes.
That very day my three bipeds got into such a state of delight
when the steep hill-road was left behind them that they started
into the city at full gallop, tearing round the corners and yell-
ing like wild things, and finally fell down like a pack of cards,
upsetting me at a street corner. I heard my skull go crack
against the wall of the house. When at last I picked myself up
again, and put up my hand to feel if my head was still there,
I saw a crowd round me, holding their sides and roaring with
laughter. All my three men were more or less bruised, but
grinned also, so I followed fashion and did as they did ; but
no one attempted to help us in any way. They looked on
the whole, apparently, as a little scene got up for their
amusement.

Kioto was a terrible place for emptying purses. While
Lady Parkes was there we had a perfect bazaar every night of
wonderful embroideries, china, bronzes, and enamels, the latter
being expensive but very lovely, with porcelain linings. I went
to see them made. First a fine scroll-work of wire was stuck
on, then the crevices were filled with clay, after which the
whole was baked, coloured, baked again, filed down, and
polished — a slow process, taking many hands to do the different
details.

I went to a place where they sell live pets, and saw the

228 Recollections of a Happy Life CHAP.

most beautiful gold and silver pheasants, mandarin ducks,
monkeys, and gazelles, and hideous brown salamanders from
Lake Biwa, two feet long ; also tortoises in a tank. The tor-
toise with a green tail Japanese are so fond of embroidering,
is merely one with green algae growing on its shell. The
Doctor had one in an aquarium, besides gold fish with ruffs
round their necks and fringes on their tails. He showed me
also a leaf from a tree on which one could scratch some writ-
ing with a pin, which became black like ink, and would last
so for years. Japan was most attractive. There was always
something new and interesting to meet me every day. I
had hoped to stay over the winter, and to go to the hills and
Nikko in the summer, but I got stiffer and stiffer, and at last
could scarcely crawl; so on the 19th of December I ordered a
boat to Osaka, and set myself to pack as well as I could,
with a fool to help me, crippled hands, and bones full of
pain.

We started in jinrickshas, at 8 P.M., for a two hours'
rattle through the suburbs to the river-side. In ,the boat-
house the men were roasting their bare legs and dripping
garments over the great pots of burning charcoal, and the tiny
neat little women were offering them thimblefuls of the hot
stuff they called tea, while cooking was going on in another
corner, and a bright glaring light was on the people's faces. I
shivered and ached, and could barely crawl out to the "house-
boat " prepared for me, and in through one of its windows on
to the heap of quilted coverlets, on which I passed the night ;
with abundant ventilation, but not more than in my late
quarters at Kioto. The sailors ran round and round over my
head, pushing, pulling, and shouting, till morning, when they
landed me near the Osaka railway-station, in which I found a
good fire and boiling water for my tea, to say nothing of a com-
fortable dressing-room (European comforts are nice some-
times). I took the first train to Kobe", and good Mr. B. opened
the door to me himself, telling me his wife had said I would

VI

Japan 229

come that morning, when she saw so much snow on the hills.
They were kind, and gave me extra warm clothing, packing
me off in the steamer the next day for Yokohama, where the
C.s again received me.

I was in the doctor's hands for ten days with rheumatic
fever. I could not even feed myself during part of the time.
I sent off Tungake, and hired a small nurse of about four feet
high, who tyrannised over me like a genuine Gamp, perpetually
running in and out at night with a horrid lantern, whose tallow
candle she used to blow out close under my nose and leave to
smoulder. Then she curled herself up in the hearthrug,
putting a wooden pillow under the angle of her jawbone, so
as not to disturb her beautifully arranged hair and chignon
(which was only dressed once or twice in the week). She had
no idea of keeping up a fire, and used to pour water on the coals
to make them last, she said, and I suspect she intercepted and
carried off a good deal of the food my kind hostess ordered for
me, till I was half starved on one roasted lark. I lived in the
house in the garden, and out of reach of the family care.
Mrs. C. was extremely kind, went on board the steamer with
me, and secured me a good cabin to myself.

The Messagerie boats are certainly the very best in the
world. That one was so beautifully warmed and sweet, that
it seemed like a change of climate when I entered it. I got
better every day, all was so clean and the cooking so good.
I sat next the kind old captain ; and his devotion to a small
puppy "bull-dog-mastiff" was most amusing. For the next
day or two we were always within sight of some island or
another. One of them was very striking, with smoking sul-
phur springs on its side, and a great natural arch in one of its
buttresses over the sea. We had beautiful calm weather, and
entered the harbour of Hong Kong about eight in the evening^
when its semicircle of lights were bright as the stars above.
The number of fine ships and odd junks (looking like ill-tied
bundles of bamboo) was very striking.

230 Recollections of a Happy Life CHAP.

In the next morning's sunrise, the colours of the rocky hills
which surround the bay or inland sea were perfectly marvel-
lous— pink, rosy red, and salmon -colour, with scarcely any
vegetation except just round and above the town itself. We
all moved our things out of the nice little ship we had come
in to a larger one of the same company on the other side of
the harbour, and passed on our way the steam-launch Commo-
dore Parish had sent for me ; but it soon followed and took me
on board the old Hospital Ship, the Victor Emmanuel, which had
brought my Cousin Dudley and so many other wounded from
Ashantee, and was now a man-of-war again, and anchored off
Hong Kong. The Commodore had turned its great saloon
into a perfect museum of Chinese and Japanese curiosities,
and he now established me and my lame feet on a comfortable
sofa. He then took me on shore, having his own chairs and
bearers waiting at the landing-place, with the very longest of
bamboos to sling the chairs on, hoisted on their shoulders.
There must have been at least twenty feet between the bearers,
and they went, like the Japanese, at a continual trot, but were
huge men, very different in their whole ways and appearance.
It is difficult to believe that they can both be descendants of one
race. The Chinese have far more originality and power of
thought, as well as bodily strength and endurance. We did
not do more than we could help, but saw enough to give me
an idea of how pretty those hills might become in a few years
by irrigation and good management. After luncheon we
went and had tea at Government House, and Miss K. gave
me a drive in her pony-carriage along the shore, with a Sikh
outrider, of whom, she told me, the Chinamen had the greatest
horror, as they said the Sikhs were not men but devils. The
Chinaman's tail is a great help to the police ; it gives them
such a handle to catch him by. They often tied several men
by their tails and drove them on in front of them. The clever
thieves had learned two dodges to escape this — one was
to have false tails which came off in their hands ; the other

VI

Singapore 231

to plait them full of needles and pins, which did their captors
"grievous bodily injury."

I slept at Government House in a real good bed for once,
with a roaring English fire close to it — this was no small
treat — waking next morning to look out on that wonderfully-
coloured circle of mountains, and the blue bay with a fore-
ground of exquisite garden shrubs and flowers. If I had only
been well I could have stayed on there, and gone the next
week in the Commodore's steam-launch up to Canton, one of
the wonders of the world ; but it was wiser to get nearer the
equator, and four days more took me into heat enough at the
French settlement of Saigon, and the mouths of the river
which leads to that wonderful old forest full of ruined
palaces and temples, /C/ambodia, about which so little is known.

Two more days brought us to Singapore, where I landed
on the 19th of January 1876. I could barely hobble from
the office of the hotel to my rooms at the other end of the
building, through its lovely garden; but how delicious that
still warm air was, with exquisite blue sky, lilac shadows, and
white lights ! The figures which squatted under the verandah
and portico had a grace about them which I had never seen
before, and their rich dark complexions were the real thing,
and not white turned brown or yellow by fading or scorching.
Their turbans, sashes, and draperies of pure colour, and the
sprinkling of gold and silver, were in such perfect harmony
with their skins. Many of them were simple bundles of white
calico. It was such a pleasure to look at these figures that I
could not even scold when they persecuted me to buy a
hundred things I did not want. I found a lemon-tree close to
my room, covered with tailor -ants which had sewn up the
leaves into most ingenious nests, the pretty flowers opening
their sweet petals close to them.

One of my windows was quite blocked up by a great bread-
fruit tree covered with fruit as big as melons, with leaves two
feet in length, gloriously glossy, and I set myself at once to

232 Recollections of a Happy Life CHAP.

make a study of it. While at this work Mrs. S., the banker's
wife, and her father, Major MacN., came to see me. The
former insisted on my moving at once to her comfortable
house outside the town. Like all the houses of Singapore, it
stood on its own little hill, none of these hills being more than
two hundred feet above the sea; but they were just high
enough to catch the sea-breezes at night, and one could sleep
with perfect comfort, though only three degrees from the
equator. This house had belonged to the House of Guthrie
for two generations, and was surrounded by every sort of
fruit-tree. Of these there were perhaps more in Singapore
than in all the rest of the world. The lovely Mangosteen was
just becoming ripe, and the great Durian, which I soon learnt
to like, under the teaching of the pretty little English children,
who called it " Darling Durian."

No garden could have been more delighted in than that
one was by me. Every day I was sure to find some new fruit
or gorgeous flower to paint, Mrs. S. working beside me all
the hot day through in her deliciously airy upper rooms.
Then we drove out among the neighbouring gardens in the
late afternoon and evening, and went to bed soon after dinner;
for Mr. S. and the other gentlemen came home far too tired
after their days in the hot bank in the town for playing at
company or sitting up at night. They had a delightful little
monkey called Jacko, who considered that all dogs were made
to be teased ; and it was strange to see how the big creatures
submitted and humoured it. This monkey was a bad sitter,
and seemed to have a malicious pleasure in throwing itself
upside-down whenever I looked at it. Then if I scolded, it
held out its paw to shake and be friends. There was also an
ourang-outang who used to be led in by the hand by the
Malay butler. They were exactly alike. Both had the most
depressed expression, which the small one never varied. The
big one grinned sometimes, — when he looked even more like
a monkey than he was before.

vr

Singapore 233

The Botanical Garden at Singapore was beautiful. Behind
it was a jungle of real untouched forest, which added much to
its charm. In the jungle I found real pitcher-plants (Nepers
thes) winding themselves amongst the tropical bracken. It was
the first time I had seen them growing wild, and I screamed
with delight. One day we drove out to have luncheon with
the Doctor and his family, who had a country house about five
miles off, near the coast, in the midst of plantations of cocoa-
nuts. The Doctor showed me all the process of crushing and
clearing the oil — not a particularly agreeable one. But the
pictures of people at work, the glorious trees, and certain
plants under them, were very interesting. One wild plant I
saw there for the first time, the Wormm excelsa, which
abounds in the different islands of " Malaysia," and is often
planted as a hedge. It has a glossy five-petalled flower of
the brightest yellow, and as large as a single camellia, with
large leaves like those of the chestnut, also glossy, and
separate seed-carpels which, when the scarlet seeds are ripe,
open wide and afford a most gorgeous contrast of colour with
its waxy green and scarlet buds. I know few handsomer
plants. All the tribe of Jamboa fruits (magnified myrtles),
too, were magnificent in their colours. There were said to
be three hundred varieties of them. Some of them had
lovely rose-coloured and pink young leaves and shoots. The
nyum-nyum was another curious fruit coming out from the
trunk and branches like the blimbing, with tiny red flowers
and pink young leaves which looked like blossoms in the
distance. That cocoa-nut plantation was a most enjoyable place.
A narrow path led in five minutes through its shady groves to
a quiet sandy bay, where one might bathe all day long without
fear of interruption.

I was taken to see a neighbouring lady one day, who told
me that a few years ago she was sitting in her central room at
work when the roof suddenly came down on her. The white
ants had eaten the wood of the supporting beams all round

234 Recollections of a Happy Life CHAP.

the nails, till the whole gave way without warning and crushed
the house ; but she and her children were all dug out unhurt,
having been under the gable or cone of the roof, which kept
its shape. Houses at Singapore are generally built with a
high central cone and a windowless room under it lighted from
the other rooms, with no ceiling between it and the high-
peaked roof, under which are more lights and ventilation.
Those rooms were always too dark for painting in, and too
airless for my taste. I prefer hot air to none, and could never
get into the tropical habit of sleeping while the precious day-
light lasted.

Mrs. S.'s verandah was full of rare plants ; orchids, caladiums,
and other exquisite things. On one, Ficus Henjamina, were
planted some score of phaloenopsis in full flower, like strings
of white butterflies hovering in the air with every breath of
wind. One day we went to have tea with Mr. Wampoa, the
famous Chinaman, whose hospitality and cordiality to the
English have been so well known for half a century in the
Straits. He showed us all his curiosities ; but his garden was to
me the great attraction, rare orchids hanging to every tree, and
the great Victoria regia in full bloom in his ponds, as well as
r- the pink and white lotus, and blue and red nymphaeas. Many
of his plants were cut into absurd imitations of human figures
and animals, to me highly objectionable, but amusing to the
children. He had also several live creatures and birds of
great beauty. He showed us a tortoise from Siam with six
legs. The hinder ones it only used when trying to get up a
very steep bank or steps, propping itself up with them, while
it struggled on with the four front ones. The Siamese cat
was a remarkable little creature, coloured like a fox, and might
possibly have been a mixture of the two animals originally.
It had sky-blue eyes, and was very shy. Mrs. S. had one
which followed her about and slept in her room.

The Maharajah of Johore, a near neighbour and great
friend of her husband's, came to dine and play at billiards

VI

Singapore 235

with him in a black velvet coat with diamond buttons, worn
over the usual Malay petticoat or Sarong. He wore a rich
turban on his head, and spoke good English. After a fort-
night I went to stay at Government House with Sir William
and Lady Jervois. It was a huge building with fine halls
and reception-rooms, but very little bedroom accommodation.
It stood on the highest hill of the district, and overlooked all
the town of Singapore, its bay and islands, and miles of the
richest country covered with woods and cocoa-nuts. Close under
my window was a great india-rubber tree with large shiny
leaves and fantastic hanging roots. In the front of the garden
was a gorgeous tree of Poinciana regia blazing with scarlet
blooms. I immediately begged a branch and hung it up to
paint, but made a most absurd mistake. I placed it the wrong
way up. It was stupid, but I was consoled afterwards when
I found that that clever Dutch lady, Madame van Nooten,
had actually published a painting of the poinciana growing
in the same topsy-turvy way ! Nothing approaches this tree
for gorgeousness ; the peculiar tender green of the acacia-like
leaves enhances the brilliancy of its vermilion tints. The
amherstia was also in great beauty in the same royal garden,
with scarlet pods and delicate rosy-lilac young leaves. The
beaumontia creeper was there too, with its white waxy bells
and beautifully embossed leaves. It was curious to see how
little the English people cared for these glories around them.
Lawn -tennis and croquet were reigning supreme in Singa-
pore, and little else was thought of after business was over.
Lady Jervois and her daughters were exceedingly kind to
me, and played Mozart deliciously of an evening, while Sir
William was a most genial host.

CHAPTEK VII

BORNEO AND JAVA

1876

AFTER a fortnight at Government House, Sir William wrote
me letters to the Rajah and Rani of Sarawak, and I went
on board the little steamer which goes there every week from
Singapore. After a couple of pleasant days with good old Cap-
tain Kirk, we steamed up the broad river to Kuching, the
capital, for some four hours through low country, with nipa,
areca, and cocoa-nut palms, as well as mangroves and other
swampy plants bordering the water's edge. At the mouth of
the river are some high rocks and apparent mountain -tops
isolated above the jungle level, covered entirely by forests of
large trees. The last mile of the river has higher banks. A
large population lives in wooden houses raised on stilts, almost
hidden in trees of the most luxuriant and exquisite forms of
foliage. The water was alive with boats, and so deep in its
mid-channel that a man-of-war could anchor close to the house
of the Rajah even at low tide, which rose and fell thirty feet
at that part. On the left bank of the river was the long street
of Chinese houses with the Malay huts behind, which formed
the town of Kuching, many of whose houses are ornamented
richly on the outside with curious devices made in porcelain
and tiles. On the right bank a flight of steps led up to the
terrace and lovely garden in which the palace of the Rajah
had been placed (the original hero, Sir James Brooke, had
lived in what was now the cowhouse). I sent in my letter,

100"

1DO" East of Green-wLclt

3tcmforVs GeogV Estate

London; Macmillaii & Co.

CHAP, vii Borneo and Java 237

and the Secretary soon came on board and fetched me on
shore, where I was most kindly welcomed by the Eani, a very
handsome English lady, and put in a most luxurious room,
from which I could escape by a back staircase into the lovely
garden whenever I felt in the humour or wanted flowers.

The Rajah, who had gone up one of the rivers in his gun-
boat yacht, did not come back for ten days, and his wife was
not sorry to have the rare chance of a countrywoman to talk
to. She had lost three fine children on a homeward voyage
from drinking a tin of poisoned milk, but one small tyrant of
eighteen months remained, who was amusing to watch at his
games, and in his despotism over a small Chinese boy in a pig-
tail, and his pretty little Malay ayah. The Rajah was a shy
quiet man, with much determination of character. He was
entirely respected by all sorts of people, and his word (when
it did come) was law, always just and well chosen. A fine
mastiff dog he had been very fond of, bit a Malay one day. The
man being a Muhammadan, thought it an unclean animal, so the
Rajah had it tried and shot on the public place by soldiers
with as much ceremony as if it had been a political conspirator,
and never kept any more dogs. He did not wish to hurt his
people's prejudices, he said, for the mere selfish pleasure of
possessing a pet.

He had one hundred soldiers, a band which played every
night when we dined (on the other side of the river), and
about twenty young men from Cornwall and Devonshire called
" The Officers," who bore different grand titles, — H. Highness,
Treasurer, Postmaster-General, etc., — and who used to come up
every Tuesday to play at croquet before the house. Some of
them lived far away at different out-stations on the various
rivers, and had terribly lonely lives, seldom seeing any civil-
ised person to speak to, but settling disputes among strange
tribes of Dyaks, Chinese, and Malay settlers.

The Rajah coined copper coins, and printed postage-stamps
with his portrait on them. The house was most comfortable,

238 Recollections of a Happy Life CHAP.

full of books, newspapers, and every European luxury. The
views from the verandah and lovely gardens, of the broad river,
distant isolated mountains, and glorious vegetation, quite
dazzled me with their magnificence. What was I to paint
first ? But my kind hostess made me feel I need not hurry,
and that it was truly a comfort and pleasure to her to have
me there ; so I did not hurry, and soon lost every scrap of
Japanese rheumatism, the last ache being in the thumb which
held my palette — it is usually the limb that does most work
which suffers from that disease. Every one collected for me as
usual. Orchids and pitcher-plants were pulled for me most ruth-
lessly, the latter being of several varieties, from the tiny little
plants which grew in the meadow near, and whose pitchers
were not half the size of thimbles, to trailing plants of six or
eight feet long. The common pepper-plant, too, was much cul-
tivated and very elegant, as well as gambier and other dyes,
sago, and gutta-percha, the former growing thirty feet high,
with grand terminal bunches of flowers from the centre of the
crown (very unlike the small cycads people had called the
sago palm in other countries). It takes fifteen years before it
flowers ; then, before the fruit has time to ripen, the whole tree
is cut down and the pith taken out and washed. Wallace
says one tree could supply a man with food for a whole year.
The gutta-percha trees were fast disappearing. They ought to
have been protected by law, and the people compelled to bleed
them as in other countries, not to sacrifice the great trees for
one crop — trees which had been a hundred years growing, and
could not be quickly replaced.

Nearly every evening I used to go for a row up and down
the river with the Eani. It was quite alive with canoes and
other picturesque boats, from good-sized merchant vessels to
mere hollowed logs of wood, so small that the paddlers seemed
to sit on the water, and might easily be snapped up by alli-
gators; but they did not often come so high up the river.
When they did there was an immediate crusade ; traps were

vii Borneo and Java 239

baited with monkeys or cats, and the beast was caught. The
Kajah gave a large reward for one, and a still larger sum if,
after a post-mortem examination, the brute was proved to be a
man-eater. It was always buried under one of the garden
trees, to the great improvement and delight of the latter.

The little town was full of life and civilisation, the bazaars
and houses gay with colour, porcelain panels with raised flowers
and griffins being let into the walls. At night the lights got
so magnified in reflection that one could fancy oneself almost
at Cologne or Mayence. Above and below for miles the
semi-amphibious Malays had built their basket-like dwellings
on stakes in the mud or on the banks above — thatched, walled,
and floored with the leaf -stalks of the nipa palm, which
delights in growing in brackish water, being almost drowned
at high tide and almost dry at low. The Malays get wine,
salt, and sugar from its juice, and oil from the nuts, which ar&_
contained in a cone as big as a cannon-ball. The sunsets were
superb on the river. When the tide was very high we used
to go up some of the small side-streams, and push our way
under arches of green tangle, which broke off bits of our boat's
roofs, as well as the rotten branches over our heads. We
watched troops of monkeys gambolling in the trees, chattering
and disputing with one another as to who we were, and what
we came for. One day we were overtaken by darkness in one
of these expeditions, and made a short cut home overland, with
a native to guide us by an almost invisible path through the
bush, very suggestive of snakes, but we saw none. The wild
jungle came close up to the garden on three sides, and none
but native eyes could discover paths beyond or through it.

There were acres of pine-apples, many of them having the
most exquisite pink and salmon tints, and deep blue flowers.
These grew like weeds. They were merely thinned out, and
the ground was never manured. They had been growing on
that same patch of ground for nine years. They were wonder-
fully good to eat. We used to cut the top off with a knife

240 Recollections of a Happy Life CHAP.

and scoop out the fruit with a spoon, the truest way of enjoy-
ing them. The mangosteen, custard -apple, and granadilla
were also in abundance. The mangosteen was one of the
curious trees people told me never had a flower. But I watched
and hunted day by day till I found one, afterwards seeing
whole trees full of blossoms, with rich crimson bracts and
rellow petals, quite as pretty as the lovely fruit. This last is
purple, and about the size of an orange, with a pink skin
inside, divided into segments, six or more, which look like
lumps of snow, melting in the mouth like it with a grape-like
sweetness. The duca was a still finer fruit of the same order,
growing in bunches, with an outer skin or shell like wash-
leather, and a peculiar nutty flavour in addition to its juici-
ess. The custard-apple was well named, for it is a union of
both words. Its outside is embossed with lozenges of dark
green on an almost creamy ground, and over the whole a
plum -like bloom, very difficult to paint, and indescribably
beautiful.

My dresses were becoming very ragged, so I sent for a bit
of undyed China silk and a tailor to make it. He appeared in
the morning in a most dignified and gorgeous turban and
other garments, and squatted himself in the passage outside
my door at his work ; but when I passed him on my way to
our midday breakfast, all these fine garments, even the turban,
were neatly folded in a pile beside him, and he was almost in
the dress nature made him. Every one peeled more or less in
the middle of the day, many going regularly to bed in dark
rooms. I never did, but worked on quietly till the day cooled
into evening, and I could go out again. The Rani gave me
entire liberty, and did not even make me go with her for her
somewhat monotonous constitutional walk every afternoon,
crossing the river to the one carriageable road, tramping nearly
to its end and back, always dressed to perfection, and escorted
by the Rajah or some of the "officers." She used to time
those walks so as to take me for a row before the splendid

vii Borneo and Java 241

sunsets were over, and I never minded how long I sat in the
boat waiting for her, watching the wonderful colours and the
life on the river.

Now and then the wives of some of the rich Malays used to
come and pay her a visit, dressed in all the brightest silks of
China or Japan. They wore many ornaments of gold, much
worked, and coloured rose or lilac, with ill-cut diamonds and
other stones set in them. They had exquisite embroidery on
their jackets, but were most proud of their heads of long hair,
and delighted in letting it down to show us. The Eani took
me one day to return a visit of ceremony from the family of
the principal shipbuilder, a member of the Eajah's council.
He and his son received us at the landing-place, and we
mounted a high ladder (over the stilts) to his house, and were
taken into the great barn-like room, where fifty Malay ladies
had been invited to meet us in their gaudiest dresses, covered
with gold bangles and dangling ornaments. They all sat
round against the walls of the room, on the floor ; we were
conducted by our elbows to some chairs round a table in the
middle, on which were two wax candles lighted in our honour,
while coffee, with two large trays of curious cakes, was
brought. At the end of the room were five big drums, some
singing women, and many babies in and out of clothes. A
most frightful noise began. Once our host got up, went and
spoke to the orchestra, and returned to tell us he had told
them "to play louder; they were not making half noise
enough ! " (the more noise the more honour being his maxim).
Many of the women were pretty, and their manners very sweet
and gentle. On our return another boat followed us with the
two candles and trays of cakes as presents. The latter were
made of rice-flour, gum arabic, and sugar, in different propor-
tions, flavoured with almonds and spices. They all had a
great family likeness to one another.

One night we found about fifty Sea-Dyaks all squatted
round the luxuriously furnished , English drawing-room when

VOL. I p

242 Recollections of a Happy Life CHAP.

we came out from dinner. They had very little dress except
tattooing, long wild hair, and coloured pocket-handkerchiefs
round their necks, and sat perfectly silent, only giving a
gratified grunt if the Rajah made an observation or relit his
cigar, till the Rani got up to say good-night ; then they also
^departed, apparently contented. They had come down the
river in a long canoe from a great distance, to ask leave to
take the heads of another tribe which had insulted them, and
had been told they must not have that pleasure. They
seemed to submit without a murmur to the prejudices of
civilisation. Of course these people were full of superstition,
and we used often to see small canoes and cocoa-nut shells full
of burning oil floating down the stream with the receding tide,
having been started from some house where there was fever,
to scare away the malaria, and save doctors' bills. They used
also to beat drums for the same purpose, which was much
more disturbing to the neighbourhood.

There was a magnificent specimen of the Madagascar raven-
ala or travellers' tree, close to the house on the other side of a
small bend of the river, and the Rajah had had the good taste
to leave all its younger off- sets round it uncut. I spent
some afternoons in drawing that view, and used to see
numbers of graceful water-snakes swim up the creek with
their heads curved well out of the water. Iguanas I also saw,
and monkeys which used to come down to the edge of the
garden and laugh at us. Sweet singing-birds were very plenti-
ful. There was a bush under my window to which a pair of
honeysuckers came regularly every night and morning. They
were no bigger than humming-birds, but did not hover like
them j clinging on tightly with their feet while they plunged
their long curved bills into each flower in turn. The cock
had a head and back of bright metallic blue and a yellow
waistcoat ; his wife was greenish.

One day a letter came, announcing that Captain Buller,
R.N., was going to bring the new Consul of Labuan in his

vii Borneo and Java 243

war-ship to pay a visit to the Eajah ; so, as his spare rooms
were only two, I persuaded him to send me off out of the way
to his mountain-farm at Mattange. The Rajah lent me a cook,
a soldier, and a boy, gave me a lot of bread, a coopful of
chickens, and packed us all into a canoe, in which we pulled
through small canals and forest nearly all day ; then landed
at a village, and walked up 700 feet of beautiful zigzag
road, to the clearing in the forest where the farm and
chalet were. The view was wonderful from it, with the great
swamp stretched out beneath like a ruffled blue sea, the real
sea with its islands beyond, and tall giant trees as foreground
round the clearing, which was also full of stumps and fallen
trees grown over with parasites — the most exquisite velvety
and metallic leaves, creeping plants, "foliage plants," caladiums,
alpinias, and the lovely cissus discolor of all manner of
colours, creeping over everything.

Great parasitic trees were standing there with their stalks
all plaited together. They had strangled the original tree on
which they had lived the first years of their treacherous lives,
and were now left like tall chimneys of lattice -work, their
victim having rotted away from the centre. There were
masses of tree-ferns ; one group round a little trickling spring
which supplied the house with water, I could not help painting.
Life was very delicious up there. I stayed till I had eaten all
the chickens, and the last remains of my bread had turned
blue; then, having seen the smoke of the parting salutes
through my telescope in the swamp far below, I came down
again, my soldier using his fine long sword to decapitate the
leeches which stuck to me by the way. When I got to the end
of my walk, I found I was expected to go back in a big boat so
covered with matting that I should have seen nothing of the
beauties outside, and to sit on a flat pillow and not get the
cramp, in the company of a native Malay family of high caste
in gorgeous clothing, who were arranging each other's heads
in the Italian fashion. I could not endure that, so insisted on

244 Recollections of a Happy Life CHAP.

getting into my old canoe with my soldier and the lads, and
letting the old cook have the honour and glory of a voyage
with his native grandees. I had a most enjoyable day ; for
we hunted up all sorts of orchids, pulling under the thick
overhanging trees, while the boys ran up the branches like
monkeys, cut them through with the soldier's silver-mounted
sword, and let the tangled masses tumble down into the water
below with a great splash and a flop, nearly swamping my small
nut-shell of a canoe. We picked off all the treasures, and soon
had a perfect haycock of greenery in the middle of the boat, to
carry home and hang up to the Eajah's trees in the garden.
One great tassel, like rats' tails, two yards long, of every deli-
cate shade through blue, green, yellow, and red, was as much
as one man could lift. Beautiful orange rhododendrons were
also growing on those branches, but dropped their flowers at
the slightest touch.

The Eajah was very glad of all the things I brought ; but
hanging on a dry tree over a well-mown grass lawn is a very
different thing from living in a swamp over the water, and I
fear few of my treasures lived long. He and the Eani went one
expedition with me in the yacht, first going down the river to
the sea, then up in a boat over the sand-bar, and up another
big river, past groves of casuarina- trees, winding in and out,
almost back to the sea again, as far as Loon Doon, where we
found a very nice house, and the magistrate, Mr. N., a most
hospitable host. The forests behind his house were really mag-
nificent. Clerodendron fallax, whose blooms used to be employed
by the Dyaks to dress the heads of their enemies taken in
battle, and the large kinds of mussaenda, were particularly
striking, the white bracts of the latter catching one's eyes at
every turn. The blue crabs all over the mud at the edge of
the river were very pretty too. Our host had a most cheerful
character, and said he never felt dull, though the only
European within reach was a wretched old drunken mission-
ary with a Malay wife, and he saw no other from year's end

vii Borneo and Java 245

to year's end. He had found and seen the great rafflesia in bloom
on the hill-jungle near, a sight I would have given much to see.

The Kajah had planned taking me to some other stations,
but his wife was suffering. We went back instead, and soon
after I started in the small steam-launch up the river, with
Mr. B., the good-natured Scotch-manager of the Borneo Com-
pany's mines in Sarawak, and a young Devonshire giant,
rejoicing in the title of " His Highness the Rajah's Honourable
Treasurer." The banks of the river were a continual wonder
all the way up, with creeping palms or rattans binding all the
rest of the greenery together with their long wiry arms and
fish-hook spines. I traced this plant far up into the high
trees. No growing thing is more graceful or more spiteful.^
We slept at some antimony-mines near the river. I found
that the manager and his wife came from Hastings, and their
belongings lived in its old High Street, and knew myself and
my dear old father perfectly well by sight. How the poor
sickly little woman enjoyed a gossip ! She had had a constant
struggle for life ever since she came out, but contrived to
make her house most comfortable, and to make good cakes
and bread and butter for her husband, in spite of the fever-
giving climate. We continued our journey next morning on
a springless tram-cart, with our feet hanging down behind, and
considered that a rest for three hours ; after which an excellent
little pony carried me, while the men walked, through a mar-
vellous forest for fifteen miles, except when we came to the
broken bridges and I had to balance myself on cranky poles
while the pony scrambled through below.

Some of the way was under limestone cliffs. The rock
ferneries round the springs, caves, and masses of standing
stalactites were exquisite, and the character of the vegetation
was different from any other in the country. The rattans or
creeping palms were everywhere, and the tall tree-stems were
plastered over with exquisite coloured leaves, so exactly
regular in their arrangement that they looked like some

246 Recollections of a Happy Life CHAP.

French artificial trimming, mounting up fifty feet or more
without a branch till they suddenly changed their character,
and turned into great bushes, their ladders of leaves rotting
off, the stem spreading as a root, which grasps the victim-tree,
gradually encircling it, and strangling it to death. No one
misses it ; for the parasite has taken its place in the forest, and
becomes itself a tall tree with a crown of branches and leaves
at the top like the others. It seemed difficult to believe that
those delicate velvet leaves and crimson stalks which ornament
the tree so kindly at first should start with the express inten-
tion of murdering it and taking its place ! But there are
plenty of other murderers which start as parasites from a seed
dropped in the branches by birds or wind, and throw their
roots downwards. Some of those roots were full of fresh
water. The Dyaks used to cut them in two and drink from
them when no other good water was near.

That forest was a perfect world of wonders. The lyco-
podiums were in great beauty there, particularly those tinted
with metallic blue or copper colour; and there were great
metallic arums with leaves two feet long, graceful trees over
the streams with scarlet bark all hanging in tatters, and such
huge black apes ! One of these watched and followed us a
long while, seeming to be as curious about us as we were about
him. When we stopped he stopped, staring with all his might
at us from behind some branch or tree-trunk ; but I had the
best of that game, for I possessed an opera-glass and he did'nt,
so could not probably realise the whole of our white ugliness.
At last we reached a deep stream with a broken bridge, too
bad even for the pony to scramble over or under, and he was
sent back. Four Dyaks were waiting with a chair, but I was
too anxious to examine the plants to get in, and walked on till
near the end of the journey, when, in order not to disappoint
them, I got in, and they started at a run and carried me up
the steep little hill, and then up the steps of the verandah
with a grunt of satisfaction and triumph.

VII

Borneo and Java 247

It was an enchanting place that bungalow at Tegoro, entirely
surrounded by virgin forest and grand mountains. Just
opposite rose a small isolated mountain, full of quicksilver,
with a deep ravine between us and it, and huge trees standing
upon its edge, festooned with leaves, their branches adorned
with wild pines and orchids — for foreground. I was taken to
the top of the mountain the next morning, where I saw all the
process of collecting and purifying the quicksilver. On that
hill one might hear Scotch, Malay, two kinds of Dyak, and
seven kinds of Chinese spoken. The Chinese were the only
really efficient workmen. They were clever and handy, but
not lovable. Nobody liked the " heathen Chinee." The poor,
simple, lazy Dyak used to bury his wages in the earth. The
Chinamen dug them up again, and gambled them away.

The Dyak has a sweet expression and much nobleness of
figure, which he does not hide with superfluous clothing. His
voice is gentle, and if asked a direct question he will give a
truthful answer, and is almost the only savage who does.
Every one told me the same story about them. At five o'clock
a gong used to sound. We heard a great thud and shout, and
the Dyak threw down his load, wherever he might happen to
be, and ran home rejoicing — work was over. Sometimes they
would come up at that time, sit on the steps of our verandah,
and gossip with Mr. B., who joked with them, treated them
like good children, and then sent them off with a present — an
empty bottle, or a bit of toast off the tea-table ; and they went
away quite happy. They just stayed long enough to make
sufficient money to buy a gun or a blanket, then returned to
their homes. I felt quite sorry to think that fine old mountain
was steadily being blown to pieces with gunpowder. Every
bit of it was said to be impregnated with quicksilver or cinna-
bar, and one could pick up lumps of pure vermilion as one
walked over it. It was a cruel process too, sweeping out the
flues ; and though eleven out of the twelve men employed twice
a year on it lost their health or died, fresh hands were always

;

248 Recollections of a Happy Life CHAP.

to be found for the work, being tempted by the high rate of
pay. I plunged my arm into an iron bath of the pure metal
up to the elbow, and found it very hard work to get it ia
Much more is said to be in other hills around.

I never saw anything finer than the afterglow at Tegoro.
The great trees used to stand out like flaming corallines against
the crimson hills. It was lovely in the full moon, too, with
the clouds wreathing themselves in and out of the same giant
trees around us. We had our morning tea at half-past six on
the verandah, and a plum-pudding in a tin case from Fortnum
and Mason was always brought out for the benefit of our
young Cornishman, who was always ready for it.

Mr. B. walked him off after it, and I had all the day in
perfect quiet to work in the wild forest or the verandah on
different curious plants. One creeper with pink waxy berries
like bunches of grapes was particularly lovely ; and the scarlet
velvet sterculia seed- case, with its grape-like berries, most
magnificent in colour. Mr. B. soon started for some other
mines, and I was left to the care of his assistant, Mr. K, who
had been sent out originally as a naturalist by Sir Charles
Lyell, in search of the " missing link," or men with tails ; and
after searching the caves in vain, kept himself alive by " col-
( lecting " for different people at home. Mr. B. found him out
and sent him to Tegoro. He was full of wit and information
about the country. I found him a most delightful companion,
as good as a book to talk to, and he was delighted to find one
who was interested in his hobbies. One day he came up with
a native carrying ai toucan on a stick over his shoulder. The
creature was tame, but bit and poked with the sharp end of
his long bill. I wanted to see his wonderful tongue, and we
opened his mouth, but could see none ; he had curled it all
back on its curious spring head. He had beautiful black
eyelashes standing straight out, and his full-face view was very
funny, the two eyes looking so separately at one, on each side
of the big red nose. I gave the toucan a large berry from the

VII

Borneo and Java 249

bunch I was painting, and he swallowed it whole. I saw it
roll slowly down his long throat and rest in the curved part.
He had that berry up again several times during the time I
was sketching him, playing with it at the end of his long
beak, then letting it roll down again. When I offered him
bread he gave his head a jerk of disdain. " White people's
rubbish," he croaked out with indignation. They were most
odd birds, with their huge beaks and crests, having the queer
habit of plastering their wives up in a hollow tree when they
began to lay, with a hole left for ventilation just large enough
for her beak to go through, to receive the food the cock
brought her. This he continued to bring till the young birds
were fledged and able to fly away and feed themselves. Mr.
B. told me he used to pass one of these nests constantly, and
see the beak of the old hen sticking out of its prison, and could
not resist giving it a flip with a liane hanging in front of it,
when the beak disappeared with a croak of disgust. The
hollow crest is thought to be a sounding-board or drum, which
helps them to make their odd trumpet-like call.

Mr. E. was a cousin of Millais, and his sketches and illus-
trations of his different adventures in pen and ink were most
excellent. I tried hard to make him publish them. Once he
was bitten by a lemur he had caught and given to a friend.
Walking back over the mountains, he felt as if his shirt was
throttling him, but found his fingers so swollen he could not
unbutton it, and soon fell down in a swoon, remaining there
till the morning, when some Dyaks found him all puffed up
and unable to move or speak. He said he did not suffer, but
was utterly powerless. They poured half a bottle of gin down
his throat, and carried him home, and he got well in time.
It was all the effect of that small cat's poisonous bite.

One day Mr. E. took me into the great forest by a regular
Dyak path, which means a number of round poles laid one in
front of the other over the bogs and mud. It requires some
practice to keep one's balance and not occasionally to step on

250 Recollections of a Happy Life CHAP.

one side of the pole, in which case one probably sinks over
the tops of one's boots in the wet sop, lucky if one goes no
deeper ! We crossed the river several times on the round
trunks of fallen trees, which, when rendered slippery by recent
rains, are not altogether a pleasant mode of proceeding, par-
ticularly when there is a noisy rushing deep river a few feet
below. Now and then there was a bamboo rail ; but as they
were generally insecurely fastened and rotten, one was as well
\ without them. We passed one or two large gutta-percha trees
^ which had escaped the usual reckless felling, and had the scars
of present bleeding ; and I was taken inside the trunk of a
splendid parasitic tree, a gigantic chimney of lace-work, the
victim -tree having entirely rotted away and disappeared — I
could look straight up and see the blue sky at the top through
its head of spreading green. The lace-like shell was not two
inches thick, and it must have been over 100 feet high.

We went back another way along the banks of the stream,
under rocks more in than out of the water — such clear cool
water with grand ferns and rattans dipping into rt from the
banks above. Mr. E. found me a Green Stick insect, which
curled its long tail over its head like a scorpion and looked
most vicious, but was perfectly harmless. It had gorgeous
scarlet wings to fly with, but on the ground was invisible as
a blade of grass.

At last I had to leave Tegoro. Mr. E. walked down two
miles with me ; then we got into a canoe and shot the rapids
for many more miles, with the great trees arching over the
small river we followed, and wonderful parasites, including
the scarlet seschy nan thus, hanging from the branches in all
the impossible places to stop. We sat on the floor of the
canoe, held on tightly, and went at a terrible pace, the men
cleverly guiding us with their paddles and sticks. Sometimes
we stuck, then they went into the water, pushed, lifted, and
started us again. AVe met other canoes returning, and being
dragged up by the men. Some were going down like us with

vii Borneo and Java 251

three stone jars of quicksilver in each, very small things, but
as much as two men could lift.

At last we got out and walked again through the wonderful
limestone forest and out to the common or clearing round
Jambusam, where there was a long -forsaken antimony -mine.
Mr. B. had kindly arranged for me to stay there, and had
sent food and furniture to meet me.

Mr. E. went up a mountain near and brought me down some
grand trailing specimens of the largest of all pitcher-plants, which
I festooned round the balcony by its yards of trailing stems.
I painted a portrait of the largest, and my picture afterwards
induced Mr. Veitch to send a traveller to seek the seeds, from
which he raised plants and Sir Joseph Hooker named the
species Nepenthes Northiana. These pitchers are often over a
foot long, and richly covered with crimson blotches.

Mr. E. took me to the entrance of a limestone cavern, and
cleared a path for me ; but as we had few lights and it was
very slippery, I stuck to my old rule of not going willingly
anywhere where I could not see my feet. The ferns and
mosses were in the greatest variety about there. One of the
sterculia trees was loaded with orange bells, but without leaves,
looking like a solid mass of colour against the green hillsideX
Then I said good-bye to Mr. E., who did not think he should
find another person to talk to about the wonders of the forest
for years perhaps, no one caring there for the things around
them ; and at Tegoro there was only one European besides
himself. Poor little Mrs. E-., at the antimony-mines, really
cried at losing sight of the one white woman she had seen for
so long, and I lingered till the last day before returning to the
Kajah's at Kuching.

The next day I said good-bye to His Highness, who came
on board to see me off at seven in the morning, like the real
English gentleman he is, a quality which no amount of senti-
nels presenting arms or yellow umbrellas can knock out of
him. Mr. B. also went across to Singapore with old Captain

252 Recollections of a Happy Life CHAP.

Kirk, and we were a pleasant little party of three on deck.
The weather was so calm and warm that we had our meals
under the awning. Those two would not let me land in the
ordinary way, but made me wait till the Company's boat fetched
me, with a grand native in a gorgeous turban to look after my
luggage, and put me into somebody's smart open carriage,
which conveyed me with great dignity to Government House.

Lady Jervois had sent to meet me by the last mail, and
this one was before its time ; but she made me very welcome,
and I stayed there till the Java steamer started — a most com-
fortable Messagerie boat with few passengers, but a most
entertaining monkey belonging to the captain. It was entirely
gentle, with an amazing amount of curiosity. Every man who
would submit had all his pockets searched and the contents
examined, tasted, and smelt one by one. My thimble puzzled
him much. He could not get it off. He went from it to the
middle finger of my other hand and found no thimble there.
At last he gave the puzzle up in despair, and made up his mind
it was a particular deformity of mine, having a silver tip to
one of my fingers only. He used to take pinches of snuff out
of a snuff-box, sneezing with great enjoyment afterwards ; and
when a glass of water was given to him he would dip his hands
in, then rub them over his poor wrinkled old face to cool
it. I got quite fond of Jacko. He used to cross his arms, put
his head on one side, and look as sentimental as a young
Oxford Don.

There was one Englishman only on board. He remarked
that he thought it was very hard that the little beast should
have the luxury of re-enjoying his dinner whenever he chose
to take it out of that great cheek -pouch, thus having one
pleasure more than human beings. He also contradicted me
flatly when I talked of the Amherstia nolilis as a sacred plant of
the Hindus. I said I thought Sir W. Hooker told me it was so,
and he said Sir William had been a great botanist, but was not
a Hindu scholar. I had made a mistake, and I began to look at

VII

Borneo and Java 253

the little man with respect, and found he was Dr. Burnell,
the famous Indian scholar and Judge of Tanjore, making a
pilgrimage to Boro-Bodo during his short spring holiday ; so
we became friends, and continued so till he died. I like a real
contradiction when it has a reason behind it, and there were
plenty of reasons in Dr. Burnell.

When we reached the roads off Batavia we were transferred
to a small steam-launch, which took us for a couple of miles
through a long walled canal with sea on each side beyond the
walls. It was said to be almost impassable in bad weather, and
looked very Dutch and straight, full of barges with the sort
of sails and rigging I had often seen in old Dutch pictures.
At the Custom House my friends handed me over to the care
of its Head, who would not look at my luggage, but told me to
wait a little till the train started for Buitenzorg. After an
hour, during which time I sat still on my trunk sketching boats
and banana-trees, he returned to tell me the train had gone an
hour ago, and there was no other till the next day; so he
packed me and my trunks into the smallest of dog-carts, with a
mite of a pony to draw it, which I expected to see lifted off its
legs by the weight behind.

It took some time to start the poor little beast off, but
being once set going, he dashed at a furious pace all the way
to the hotel, which consisted of a straggling collection of
ground-floor rooms, with verandahs and sleeping men on rock-
ing-chairs all round them in the lightest possible clothing.
The landlady came out quite composedly in her night-gown,
her hair down her back, and was very efficient and kind.
I did not think so much of her husband, and suspected
that "schnaps" would soon be the death of him. About five
o'clock I put on my best dress and took my letter to the Pre-
sident of the Council, M. van Eees, a most courteous apd
agreeable man. His wife was in the hills, where he said I
must go and see her, and he handed me back to the carriage
as if I were a princess, and told the driver where to take me

254 Recollections of a Happy Life CHAP.

so as to have an idea of the outside of (Batavia. The fashion-
able part in which I was is like one huge garden, with toy
houses dotted about in it, half hidden amongst the trees, most
of them being of one storey with Grecian porticoes as large as
themselves, and verandahs all round. It is divided by many
canals and roads crossing at right angles to one another. All
" The World " was walking or driving about in the cool even-
ing air, without cumbering themselves with hats or gloves.
The ladies looked very nice, with natural flowers stuck into their
hair. Everywhere in Java this habit prevails, and it is really
sensible. What is the use of heating heads and hands with
protection from the sun when it has gone oufc of sight ? Visits
too are paid at that hour. If a family is "at home," lights
are lit in the portico or verandah ; if not, nobody thinks of
going. They never think of staying to dinner, which is the
family supper, when all the small children of the family reign
supreme. Dutch children are awful! Being much left to
native nurses who give them their own way in everything,
their manners are not improved by the constant society of the
nurse's children, over whom they domineer much as they used
to do in the old days of slavery.

The roads are watered most systematically by natives, with
two watering-pots suspended from the two ends of a bamboo
on their shoulders; they run about as fast as they can go,
guiding the pots with their hands. Every man in Java is
obliged by law to water the ground in front of his own
domain. The common Javanese men all wear a painted dish-
cover on their heads. They have fine figures, but hideous
faces, from the habit of stuffing tobacco and betel-nut between
their lower lip and teeth, causing the former to project in a
horrible way ; but they are honest good people.

Batavia was a most unpleasant place to sleep in, full of
heat, smells, noise, and mosquitoes. I started as soon as
possible the next morning in the train for Buitenzorg, which,
though only a few hundred feet above the sea, has pure cool

vii Borneo and Java 255

air at night. Every one (who is anybody) has a villa there,
and merely goes to the city on business and as seldom as pos-
sible. The old French landlady said she had been expecting
me a long while, and gave me a cheerful little room with a
lovely garden on each side, with such cocoa-nut, breadfruit,-
and bananas that it was a real joy to sit still and look at them ;
and I resolved to stay quiet for a month or more, and learn a
little Malay before I went anywhere else. Mr. and Mrs. F.,
who lived close by in the most exquisite little garden that
ever was seen, promised to make all easy for me both at
Buitenzorg and on my future travels, and they abundantly
fulfilled their promises.

The order of everything in Java is marvellous; and, in spite
of the strong rule of the Dutch, the natives have a happy, in-
dependent look one does not see in India. Java is one magni-
ficent garden of luxuriance, surpassing Brazil, Jamaica, and
Sarawak all combined, with the grandest volcanoes rising out
of it. These are covered with the richest forests, and have a
peculiar alpine vegetation on their summits. One can ride
up to the very tops, and traverse the whole island on good
roads by an excellent system of posting arranged by Govern-
ment. There are good rest-houses at the end of every day's
journey, where you are taken in and fed at a fixed tariff of
prices. Moreover, travellers are entirely safe in Java, which
is no small blessing. Mrs. F. used to drive me about in the
very ea"rly morning, and show me lovely views and forest
scenes, with tidy little native houses hidden among the trees
arid gardens, made of the neatest matting of rattan or bamboo,
with patterns woven in black, white, and red, and slight bam-
boo frames hung round with bird-cages. These houses gener-
ally have sago -palms, bananas, cocoa-nuts, as well as coco,
coffee plants, and breadfruit trees, belonging to them. The
sago-palms were just then in full flower, with great bunches of
pinkish coral branches coming out of the centre of their crowns.
The fruit when ripe is like green satin balls quilted with red silk

256 Recollections of a Happy Life CHAP.

The famous Botanic Garden was only a quarter of an hour's
walk from the hotel, and I worked there every day, but soon
found it was of no use going there after noon, as it rained regu-
larly every day after one o'clock, coming down in sheets and
torrents all in a moment. On one occasion I was creeping
home with my load, without the slightest idea of a coming
storm, when down it came, and in five minutes the road was
a river. I had to wade through some places a foot deep in
water, when a kind lady saw me from her window, and sent
her servant running after me with an umbrella.

The Governor- General asked me to dinner in his grand
palace in the midst of the garden. There were several people
there, and some great men with fine orders on their coats ; and
when a little dry shy -mannered man offered me his arm to
take me in to dinner, I held back, expecting to see the
Governor-General go first ; but he persisted in preceding the
others, and I made up my mind that Dutch etiquette sent the
biggest people in last, only taking in slowly that my man was
his Excellency after all. We ought not to be led by appear-
ances, for he was very intelligent, and talked excellent
English. But as Madame de Lonsdale (a Spanish lady) only
understood French, the conversation was mostly carried on in
that language, and I floundered about in my usual " nervous
Continental."

There was another hotel in the place, with a most magni-
ficent view from its terrace, which I painted, looking over
miles of splendid plantations of cocoa-nut and every kind of
fruit-tree, with patches of rice and other grain between, lead-
ing up through grand forests to the most stately volcano, with
a wide river winding underneath, full of people wading, wash-
ing, and fishing. Those amphibious people always prefer to
go through the water rather than over it on bridges, and they
go in, clothes and all, in the most decent way. Men and
women dress almost alike, in all the brightest colours, with
rich Indian scarves thrown round them, and always the in-

VII

Borneo and Java 257

separable umbrella. One sees perfectly naked children going
along with an umbrella, or sometimes balancing a banana leaf
as a substitute on their heads. They delight in flying kites of
different kinds. Quite old men used to come and practise that
amusement on an open space near my window every day, with
their gray beards thrown up in the air, and their respectable
turbans falling off their heads. The studies from that window
were endless in their variety of colour, everything seeming
brighter than in other places, even the fruits. One rather
mawkish variety of the jamboa (myrtle) was pear-shaped, and
of the brightest pink and scarlet colour as well as white.
These used to be threaded on bits of cane, tied in bunches,
and sold with bananas and oranges, in baskets slung from the
ends of a bamboo over a native's shoulders, the native wearing
a grass-green jacket, scarlet sash and turban, and crimson sarong
or petticoat. No colours were too bright in the north of Java.
In the south, indigo-blue was the prevailing tint, a fashion which
had probably come over from South India with the Hindus
who settled there many centuries ago.

No Malay uses his hands if he can help it ; the smallest
weight is put on the head, or slung to the bamboo on his
shoulder, which wears quite a deep groove in the flesh. The
nurses are also very gay, with lovely Indian scarves thrown
over their heads and shoulders, often interwoven with gold,
and the children are carried on their shoulders or hips very
easily and gracefully.

The Dutch food in Java was peculiar, but good, the prin-
cipal meal being at twelve o'clock, when one found on every
plate a mountain of well-boiled loose rice. To that one added
chicken bones, rissoles, sausages, cutlets, poached eggs, salt
fish, curry sauce, stewed bananas, and a dozen other incon-
gruous things, and ate them all together with a spoon. They
had also beef-steaks and potatoes in some places, and dessert ;
but the former was often of buffalo flesh, which is blue and
black, not tempting, and one had little desire for more food

VOL. I S

258 Recollections of a Happy Life CHAP.

after the first mixture. The evening meal was a much lighter
one. In the afternoon at four o'clock cups of tea were taken
into every room, and the world dressed itself up to pay visits
and walk or drive. The baths, too, in those regions are taken
in an odd but very agreeable manner, in marble baths with
the water coming from a spout overhead, and running out at
the bottom, merely splashing one all over, with a bit of per-
forated wood to stand on. It refreshes one much more than
soaking in water. There were abundance of baths in the hotel,
and they could be taken at any hour.

The Botanic Garden was a world of wonders. Such a
variety of the different species was there ! The plants had
been there so long that they grew as if in their native woods —
every kind of rattan, palm, pine, or arum. The latter are most
curious in their habits and singular power of emitting heat.
All the gorgeous water-lilies of the world were collected in a
lake in front of the palace. The Director was most kind in
letting me have specimens of all the grand things I wanted to
paint. The palms alone, in flower and fruit, would have easily
employed a lifetime. The blue thunbergia and other creepers
ran to the tops of the highest trees, sending down sheets of
greenery and lovely flowers.

The view from the bridge in the very High Street of
Buitenzorg was the richest scene I ever saw. A rushing river
running deep down between high banks, covered with a tangle
of huge bamboos, palms, tree-ferns, breadfruit, bananas, and
papaw-trees, matted together with creepers, every individual
plant seeming finer and fresher than other specimens of the
same sort, and the larger such plants were, the grander their
curves. Then they had the most exquisite little basket-work
dwellings hidden away amongst them, and in the distance was
a bamboo bridge— a sort of magnified human spider's web.
Looking straight along the street from the bridge was another
pretty view — little shops full of gaily coloured things, such as
scarlet jamboa fruit, yellow bananas, pomelas, melons, pines,

VII

Borneo and Java 259

and hot peppers of the brightest reds and greens. Pretty birds
in bamboo cages, people in every shade of purple, scarlet, pink,
torquoise-blue, emerald-green, and lemon-yellow; small copper-
coloured children carrying all their garments on the tops of
their heads, grass-cutters carrying inverted cones of green
fastened to their bamboos and almost hiding them. Long
avenues of huge banyan trees bordered the principal drive to
the palace, with large bird's-nest ferns growing on their
branches, each tree forming a small plantation of itself, with
its hanging roots and offsets from the branches. Herds of
spotted deer used to rest in the shade under these trees, and
parties of the great crested ground-pigeon, as big as turkeys,
were always to be found there. It was a delightful place to
work in, even in the heat of the day.

The market was a very busy one, full of odd groups and
queer things, and if one bought anything there it was done
up in a bit of banana-leaf, pinned together with a spine of the
wild palm, and tied with a strip of its leaf. I watched some
common coolies getting their breakfast at a Chinaman's stall,
out of fifty little saucers full of odds and ends, taking a pinch
from each, with a rice cake to put the morsels on. Fingers
were their only tools, and by the end of the day the saucers
must have had a strong fingerish flavour, I should think.
Chinamen in Java tucked up their tails and wore gray wide-
awakes an inch too big for their heads, and did not look
picturesque. The Malays often wore hats as big as targets,
and coloured like them with all the colours of the rainbow.
More dandified characters wore highly polished dish-covers,
gaudily painted, over their turbans or head-handkerchiefs.
The servants of great people stuck glazed chimney-pot hats
with cockades on the tops of their bright-coloured turbans,
which had a very ridiculous effect.

After more than a month at Buitenzorg I left my heaviest
trunk and started for Batavia, with a big letter in my pocket
from the Governor-General to all officials, native and Dutch,

260 Recollections of a Happy Life CHAP.

asking them to feed and lodge me, and pass me on wherever I
wished to go. I found the hotel at Batavia quite full, but the
landlord and landlady made me live in their rooms and eat
with them, most kindly putting me up for the night " some-
how," and charging nothing. I made a pilgrimage to see the
Dutch flower -painter, Madame van Nooten. She was very
poor, and the Government had helped her to publish a large
volume of prints, oddly and badly selected and not over-well
done, but she was an interesting and most enthusiastic person,
and she pressed me to come and stay with her. I bought a
copy of her book and sent it home to Kew (it being far too
big to be kept in a flat), but the ship was wrecked and it
never reached its destination.

I also went down to the business part of Batavia to Bryce's
shop, where I was told I could "buy anything," but found they
only sold things wholesale, so I was reduced to making little
purchases from the Chinaman pedlar as usual. I had a letter
to Mr. P., who scolded me for not giving it before, and made
me promise to go and stay up at his country-house with Mrs.
P. on my return. I found there was a good deal of division
between " sets " of people in Java, and that one set was very
jealous of another — thus I saw only the set to which Mr. and
Mrs. F. belonged.

There were three kinds of public carriage in Batavia — a
comfortable open one, which was expensive and too heavy for
the small ponies which dragged it ; secondly, a kind of dog-
cart, which was light and uncomfortable, without any rest for
the back, but it was the fashionable cab of the place ; thirdly,
a very light and comfortable car, with a seat behind the
driver facing the horses, and a back to it, but that conveyance
was unfashionable, and considered not " the thing " to go in.
Mrs. F. had kindly arranged with the captain of my ship to
call for me at six the next morning and take me with him on
board. He was a great big laughing young fellow, and rolled
about the deck in loose white trousers, a shirt, and a meer-

vii Borneo and Java 261

schaum in his mouth, but was thoroughly efficient. The ship
was full of great people, three Eesidents (Lord-Lieutenants of
Counties) and a Colonel of Engineers going with his men to
make a railway. Most of these people talked English, and
most had large families of disorderly children and servants.
One perfectly round old gentleman used to sing songs and tell
stories to the children, and got nearly torn to pieces by them.
Most of the people on board were of the same shape and of
the Pickwick type of countenance. Their loose trousers were
made out of the national sarongs, whose enormous patterns
and gaudy colours looked strangely out of character round
their short legs, the upper half of their dress being a flowing
white shirt (not tucked in at the waist). They had no stock-
ings, and heelless slippers which went flop-flop about the deck.
The ladies dressed in the same fashion, only the sarong
was put on like a petticoat. They were generally very^
fat.

At Samarang every one but myself and the captain went
on shore, but as I was to return that way I preferred staying
quiet and painting the glorious view of its harbour and the
five volcanoes from the deck. There was no snow, but they
were all about 10,000 feet high, and their slope was steeper
than that of Etna or Teneriffe. One smaller one was still
smoking, the others were quiet. It was a wonderful scene, for
those mountains are not the mere satellites of a great volcano,
but each a perfectly separate one of great size. The country
at their feet seemed magnificently cultivated and peopled.
Soerabaja is much more fitted to be the capital than Batavia.
It is a very busy place, with a lovely landlocked harbour in
which the biggest ships could anchor close to the shore. Both
it and the streets were full of traffic and movement.

I only stayed a night at the hotel, then Mrs. F.'s nephew,
the town-clerk of the place, took me off to his house in the
suburbs (where everybody had their villas), and gave me a
delicious room in his garden. His wife was most hospitable.

262 Recollections of a Happy Life CHAP.

They were the first people who had really shown that virtue,
though many talked of it. The Dutch are generally so
taken up with the idea of money-making that it does not
occur to them to entertain strangers, though they would
always be willing to help one if told how to do it ; but Mrs.
S. EL made me quite at home. I promised to return straight
to her house after my expedition to the mountains. I drove
from their house "post" with four horses, which went full
gallop and were changed every three or four miles without a
moment's loss of time (as well as their coachman and groom,
to whom I always gave a fee of twopence each), through an
almost continuous avenue of tamarind trees, which met over-
head, shading the long straight road most deliciously. This
was mended and swept as smooth as a carpet, the bullock-
carts and heavy traffic being forced to go on a parallel road
outside the trees.

I stayed three days in an excellent hotel at Pasoeroean,
which had a civil landlord (who charged it in the bill). From
hence I made an expedition to Blauwe Water, the site of an
old Hindu temple, where there were some hundreds of tame
monkeys in the trees, protected by Government. Everybody
who visited the place took fruit for them, and when they heard
a carriage coming they came down to receive the new-comer,
and with much chattering and disputing divided the spoil, then
swarmed up into the branches again. It was an odd sight, and
the stillness which reigned between the arrivals of the carriages
was very curious. I began a sketch of the old Hindu temple
ruins and tank. After an hour or two, feeling hungry, I took
a biscuit out of my pocket, which I began to eat leisurely as I
went on with my work I was disturbed by a pull at my
dress, and found a huge monkey sitting close beside me, look-
ing reproachfully at me with the expression of " How can you
be so greedy ? Why don't you give me a bit ? " Of course he
did get it, and then departed and hid himself in the leaves
overhead. They had one old king among them — a very big

VII

Borneo and Java 263

monkey, who always helped himself first, and allowed none of
the others to interfere with him.

My polite landlord would not let the banker do anything for
me. Oh no ! He would himself drive me to the end of the road
and see me mounted on horseback. So we drove to Paserpan,
past magnificent crops of corn, rice, millet, mandioca beans,
tobacco, and sugar-cane ; and after sitting awhile on rocking-
chairs under the chief's verandah my little horse was brought^
out (a real beauty), but with a man's saddle covered with
velvet, brass-headed nails, and embroidery. I do not enjoy
that sort of seat, but the pony carried me beautifully, and the
way was all interesting, though the poor coolies who carried
my trunks found paper and paints very heavy, and some sat
down and declared themselves " sakit." We wasted a couple
of hours trying to find others, and at last succeeded ; they
were all nice good-humoured fellows, with whom I felt quite \
safe. After a while we mounted up to the region of coffee,
and finally to that of cinchona and tea, and all manner of
European vegetables, which were sent down every morning for
the poor gasping people on the hot plains to eat. My land-
lord at Tosari was very angry with the other for not having
taken the trouble to telegraph to him, to send down his horse
with a side-saddle and strong hill-coolies for the luggage. He
was a very nice person, originally a civil engineer. His jolly
fat wife and children were all most friendly and kind to me,
and after the other guests left I took my meals in their private
rooms.

Tosari is 6000 feet above the sea. Its season was over, and
it was cold at night, and generally wrapped up in clouds. The
scenery is very curious, the steep volcanic hillside ploughed
up into great furrows from top to bottom, often 1000 feet deep,
and the tops a few yards across. One could talk to people on
the opposite hill- slope, though it would take hours of hard
scramble or roundabout paths to reach them. Those steep
slopes were cultivated in the most marvellous way. I never

264 Recollections of a Happy Life CHAP.

met such an industrious people, and where other crops are
impossible, the gaps are filled by tree-ferns and almost alpine
flowers — marigolds, nasturtiums, balsams, guelder-roses, rasp-
berries, great forget-me-nots, violets, sorrel, etc. The country
was splendid beyond the casuarina trees, which are tall and
transparent like poplars, and invaluable for foregrounds, as
they cut the long horizon-line of sea, plain, and sky, and do
not hide the landscape. The people (like all other moun-
taineers) were honest and friendly, and every spur had a
village perched on its sharpest point. The politeness of every
one was overwhelming. As I was mooning along collecting
flowers one day, the chief of the district rode up, with half-a-
dozen wild men in attendance on bare-backed ponies. They
all dismounted and made bows while I passed on, then re-
mounted and disappeared.

My good landlord himself accompanied me on the great
expedition of the place, to see the Bromo volcano and Sand
Sea. He said there were wild horses feeding on the Sand Sea
which might be troublesome to my little horse, so he put his gun
over his shoulder on the chance of shooting some small birds
for me. We started over the white frost in the early morning,
and the only bird he shot at was a peacock — an enormous one,
which flew across the road with a great yell and fluster, and
I hope was none the worse for my landlord's small-shot. The
Sand Sea was the original crater of the Bromo, which fell in
and sent up that flat plain of sand, like a moat round the
present crater, surrounded on all sides by high rock walls 800
or 1000 feet high, down which we walked or slid with our
ponies following us. Then we crossed the sand for some
miles, and climbing to the edge of the present Bromo crater,
looked down on the sulphur and smoke within. It is con-
sidered very holy by the 8000 Hindus who still exist in that
southern end of the island, and who go on a particular day
every year and throw chickens in, which generally fly out
again, and are caught and eaten. In early times human sacri-

vii Borneo and Java 265

fices were made there, then animals ; now these rites are next
to nothing. We mounted up on the other side of the Sand
Sea cliffs, and got a view of the cone and smoke of the Smeroe
volcano over the other mountains, the only really active one,
and the highest, it being 13,000 feet above the sea.

We rode on to the first village, and had a fine view of the
sea and all the eastern end of the island. My landlord was a
most entertaining companion, speaking perfect English, and
knowing the whole place well. He and his wife were both
musicians. They had a piano and harmonium, and sang really
well. He also did a good deal of doctoring, giving ten grains
of quinine or an electric shock from his machine in exchange
for a fat chicken. This the natives considered a fair exchange.
The place was constantly in the clouds, but it seldom rained,
and the air was dry. The native houses were all made of
bamboo, which was first soaked for some days in water, in
order to drown the small weevil which lives in the wood.
Then it was used in a thousand ways. The roofs, floors,
indeed the whole house and frame were made of it. It was
split, flattened, and plaited into mats, which formed the walls
of the houses, and it always looked clean, neat, and polished.
The three children of the house were real beauties, the girl of
thirteen like the fairest woman Rubens ever painted, with
golden wavy hair and an exquisite complexion, which was
taken no care of. She was out all day long without a
hat. It was real genuine beauty, and wanted no dress-
ing. She and her brother employed themselves in making
bamboo cages and catching birds to put in them. They knew
a little English, and the youngest child went by the name of
Klein-baby. He was a real pickle, and used to perch himself
on the edge of my window, sit on his heels, and chatter Dutch
at me for an hour at a time, and never bored me. He wanted
no answers, and never would believe I did not understand
him. The cinchona is a tiresome crop to grow, as it takes
seven years before it is fit to bark. Some people had tried

266 Recollections of a Happy Life CHAP.

taking half off for some years running, but it did not answer
so well. At Tosari they cut the whole down, when each tree
was worth about ten shillings. They were planted at about a
yard and a half from one another, with tea underneath to take
their place when cut.

It seemed like leaving home again to come away from those
kind people. I had been told in the plain the road I wished
to go was full of difficulties and dangers, but I found none.
First we mounted up to the hoar-frost and view of the smoking
Smeroe, then down a valley of ferns and rushing water,
through miles of old coffee plantations all left to grow their
own way, in the Java fashion, with erythrina trees covered
with their coral-like flowers to shade them, and numbers of
natives creeping about under them collecting the berries, sing-
ing and talking to one another. Once a great toucan came
floundering along, almost knocking against me with its
awkward wings and huge crest. Beautiful blue birds and
butterflies came constantly up the path. We stopped half an
hour for luncheon, and the good little horse carried me all day
without any food most merrily, till we got on the plain and a
straight hard road, when we all became weary of the last five
miles over it.

At last we got to Pakis, and rode to the house of the chief,
with a letter from my Tosari landlord asking him to send me
on to Malang. He was a model Javanese, and I felt quite
safe with him ; paid my men and horses, and sent them back.
I sat myself calmly down in the universal rocking-chair under
the verandah, or rather the steeple-shaped roof which covered
the open Court House. The chief informed me I should be
sent on soon, and a good deal more in a more than unknown
tongue ; for in that part of Java they talked Javanese, not
Malay, and the former language I had not even attempted to
learn. Then he went and stood in the road, looking up and
down, as if he expected a pumpkin drawn by six griffins to
come round the corner. He also sent men galloping off in

VII

Borneo and Java 267

different directions on their toy ponies. A big cock came and
sat down beside me, and shared the bit of bread I was eating,
giving contented clucks at every crumb I threw him, allowing
me to stroke his broad back as if he were a cat. People in
Java delight in taming birds. Every house is hung with
cages, and one sees the children walking about with Java
sparrows sitting on their heads and shoulders, a string tied
round their leg. Cages of doves are hung up among the
feathery foliage of the tamarind trees, with cords and pulleys
to get them up and down by, and are supposed to attract wild
birds to build and perch near them.

Presently they brought me a delicious cup of tea, with a
tortoiseshell cover over it, and a bottle of antique biscuits
from Eeading ; and after a while the lady of the house re-
turned, and I was put with my trunks into her carriage — a sort
of big wheelbarrow with a roof over it and no seats, the
driver sitting on the shafts. It was lined with red flannel,
and I stretched myself at full length, and rather enjoyed its
hard floor after my long day's ride. A loose horse trotted on
in front of us during the first post, and then was put in the
place of the original, which went home. The trunks were
packed on another horse. All this was done for nothing, the
chief writing to my landlord at Malang that as there was no
post-carriage he had sent me in his own. Mr. MacL. received
me most kindly. His father had left the Highlands in 1804,
and he called himself a Javanese ; but in spite of his untidy,
disreputable exterior, was a true Scotch gentleman. He was
once a millionaire, but had become very poor, and had many
trades, amongst others that of keeping a boarding-house, which
he did not in the least understand. It was full of business^
men, a quiet, depressed set, with wives and untidy families,
who got their food from the kitchen and ate it anywhere.
Mr. MacL. took me himself to see the Resident with my
Governor-General's letter.

He sent me about in his own great open carriage and four

268 Recollections of a Happy Life CHAP.

horses, first to Singosari, where I saw some huge and hideous
old Hindu idols, half human, half animal, carved elaborately
out of a stone which is not found in that end of the island, and
sitting among palms, ferns, and frangipani trees. The whole
neighbourhood of Malang abounds in Hindu ruins, the richest
tropical vegetation, running water, and fevers. Once while
painting in my room I was called out to see the young " Con-
troller " of Batoe, a very limp young man in spectacles, who
said the Resident had told him I wanted to go to Ngantang.
He was going to conduct the Regent (native prince) there in a
day or two, and would take me also if I liked. Could I start
at once? Of course I could. I knew Ngantang was called
the gem of all Java. So I bundled all my things into the
wardrobe, gave the key to Mr. MacL., and started with next to
no luggage in the carriage and four, with my new friend, who
was very much like Lord Dundreary, minus the whiskers.
His English was well-intentioned but peculiar. He "feared
there would be no eat in Batoe/' but I found his house and
food both perfection ; he only wanted a good wife to make his
home a model. He had masses of roses in his garden, and
beautiful hills beyond ; and, to his great delight, I began
sketching at once, while he tumbled in and out of the verandah,
watching, no easy task, as he was so short-sighted; he never saw
anything three inches beyond his nose. He was thoroughly
happy, having put himself into a light and flowing attire peculiar
to Dutch officials in Java — loose pink cotton trousers, white
flowing shirt, collarless and cuffless, no stockings, and heelless
slippers, rather startling to a stranger at first, but I had got
quite accustomed to it. The ladies were even more untidy,
and literally wore a nightdress, with their hair hanging down
their back, till sunset.

The Controller took some hours to write a long letter on
two sides of a slate (sucking his pencil between every few
words), to beg a particularly good horse from a native chief
for me to ride the next day. He had brought a lady's saddle

viz Borneo and Java 269

- -" i
from Malang with him. The next morning he gave a great

gasp of relief as I jumped into it from the ground, for he had
a sort of horrible dread that he should have to lift me on, and
did not know how to do it. Poor fellow ! He was in the
highest degree of nervous anxiety about the Regent's recep-
tion and his responsibility for it, for that personage was very
great indeed, descended from many generations of native
princes, and a " knighted Sir of Holland," my host told me.
So I thought it kind to take myself out of his way early, and
rode on ahead, with a mounted official before and behind to
guard me. They wore big " uglies " over their turbans, red
jackets and waistcoats au naturel, with daggers stuck into
their sashes behind, hitching up the red jackets, and their
great toes stuck in through the stirrup, like dark people all
over the world. The whole road was crowded with people
expecting the Regent, in holiday dress, gay with colour.
When they saw my red-jackets they thought he was coming,
dismounted, and forced their animals into the bushes and
ditches, squatting down themselves, and even pretending to
pray at me with their two lifted hands. They were rather
disgusted at seeing only a woman.

I went through miles and miles of coffee covered with
white bloom. In that one district alone 1,300,000 Ibs. of
coffee had been sold to Government that year, so that every
one was in great spirits. Then we came to beautiful winding
valleys, with the river far below like a torrent, often quite
hidden by the jungle of bamboos and other green things over
it. I never saw anything more lovely. At last the valley
widened, and we reached Ngantang and the Chief's house,
where there was a great gathering to greet the Regent, and a
wonderful orchestra to entertain me while I sat in the open
verandah waiting for him. Two large frames like bed-
stretchers held each sixteen tin kettles, forming two very im-
perfect octaves. There was also a kind of viol of metal plates.
Both these were struck with bamboo sticks, and there was

270 Recollections of a Happy Life CHAP,

also an odd collection of drums. They gave me tea, and the
usual bottle of biscuits, and a nice airy room — the floor of mud,
the walls and ceiling of bamboo-matting, so closely plaited
that I could not find a chink of light through it. There were
four such rooms, with clean beds, snow-white linen, and mos-
quito-curtains. In all provincial capitals of Java there is such
a house for official people to lodge at, and with my letter I
had a right to use it also.

After about two hours the great people arrived, the old
Regent the very picture of good-nature. He wore a black
wide-awake over his turban and big gold spectacles. He was
a thorough gentleman in manner, and very popular, insisting
on putting me into the place of honour at dinner and supper.
We had the usual rice, with so many curious little dishes to
eat with it that they seemed to require numbering and a cata-
logue, but I did as the others did — I took a pinch of each, and
found the food very entertaining. The thing I missed in
Java was bread. It is seldom eaten, very costly, and only
brought when called for, so I tried to learn to do without it
also.

The forests round Ngantang were full of curious things —
parasitic trees with extraordinary outside -roots, buttresses,
and leaves looped over the branches. There were clearings full
of coffee and tobacco, and above all, the Kloet volcano and
other hills clothed up to their tops with rich woods. I spent
a delightful morning and evening wandering amongst it all,
perfectly alone, while the great people held their court in the
verandah. Most of my return ride was made between them,
the Regent on a pretty little cream-coloured horse looking
the image of Pickwick, and bringing constantly to the tip of
my tongue the sentiment, "Bless his old gaiters," for he also
wore those appendages on horseback. The young Controller
on my other side rode a miniature Javanese pony, and
almost touched the ground on each side with his feet. We
had a great train of attendant chiefs behind us, while the

VII

Borneo and Java 271

people who had collected in the road to see us pass fell down
like packs of cards as we came up. The lower they went, the
higher their great man rose above them and was magnified ;
so many of them went flat down in the ditch. About half-
way they turned off by another road to visit a different district,
and I went on with my two red- jackets, the Regent's Head
Man, as an especial honour, in front ; and after a mile or two
I met an Englishman ! — an engineer who was mapping out the
country. He said he had heard of me, and it was a real treat
to have a talk with a countrywoman, so he turned and rode
a while with me, and let his tongue go, then said he felt
better, and good-bye. It was a pleasant meeting for us
both.

I stayed two more nights at Batoe, and left my host a
portrait of his house. The Regent, who was staying with his
son-in-law, a chief near, came with his principal wife and a
daughter to pay us a visit in state, drawn by four horses,
with betel-nut, umbrella-carriers, etc. How the old man
laughed, cried, chewed, and slobbered, all at the same time !
The wife was a daughter of the people, who had once sold fruit
at the road-side. She was very small, but her manners were
quite easy, and she talked sensibly, my host said. She had
no children, but the old gentleman had a moderate supply
of other wives, and thirty-four children, and was said to be
rich enough to provide for a great many more. The lady
wore a Paris hat and chignon, but the rest of her costume was
like that of the ordinary native. Such visiting seemed very
liberal on the part of a Muhammadan, but the Dutch officials
in Java had made themselves generally trusted and respected
by the upper-class natives, who seemed everywhere on the
best terms with them. Then my host took me back to!
Malang, and the Resident, M. de Vogel, came and called on me,
and looked over my work. He was just like an English
gentleman, knew every place and plant, and arranged to send
me the next day in his carriage to Djampang with four post-

272 Recollections of a Happy Life CHAP.

horses, which went like the wind (for which I paid nothing),
changing every three or four miles.

At the first post I found my old friend the Chief of Pakis
waiting for me, who made me signs I was to follow him, pre-
tending to pull off his jacket and uttering the magic word
" water." He took me down to see a beautiful blue lake and
bathing place, and showed me the spring bubbling up through
it; then conducted me back to the carriage, mounted his mare,
and cantered on beside me to Pakis, where horses were changed;
then brought me on to Mr. Netcher's, the Controller of Djam-
pang. He was a descendant of the famous painter of white
satin petticoats, and a very nice and intelligent man of the
world, a great contrast to my late kind host. His wife was a
victim to fever. He borrowed a spirited little horse from a
neighbouring chief (which went well after the usual commence-
ment of standing on its hind-legs and kicking out behind at
starting), and sent me with five attendants to see and sketch
the beautiful little temple of Kidal. The luxuriance of the
bamboos and palms was even greater than any I had seen else-
where. The rivers and waterfalls were surrounded with ideal
ferneries and huge-leaved plants. Both the temple of Kidal
and that of Djampang (close to the Controller's house) are
small, but perfectly covered with the richest and finest carv-
ings, quite like cameo-work of pure Indian designs. They are
almost smothered in foliage, grown over with ferns and lyco-
podiums, and have small tanks and springs of water near
them.

My poor fever-stricken hostess appeared in the evening, — a
mere hopeless skeleton-woman, who took cod-liver oil, cream,
and enormous quantities of food, beer, wine, etc., but never
got fatter, she said. The next day she was pretty well, and
her husband took me for a glorious ride and walk up and
down the steep spurs of the Smeroe, followed by about twenty
chiefs. They had an idea that if anything were to happen to
a white person in their district some dreadful misfortune would

vii Borneo and Java 273

happen to them, so they always followed him about like dogs,
watching every step he took. My little horse stood twice on
its hind-legs, so it was led all the way by a chief on either
side, and when I got off to walk they kept close to me, ready
to pick me up if I tripped, and seemed to expect me to throw
myself down every steep bank, though it would have been
difficult, with the stout bamboo-railings and good roads, to
come to any harm. On the top of every ridge was a village
and chief's house, where we sometimes rested and took tea all
round, including our numerous followers, who squatted in a
semicircle in front of us. If we stopped on a hill to breathe,
they all squatted on their heels round us, as it is disrespectful to
stand in the presence of Government officials, or to allow their
heads to be on the same level as ours.

We went through glorious scenery — deep dells full of ferns
of endless variety, anthurium leaves nearly a yard long, and
higher than myself ; then through endless plantations of coffee-
trees, pollards, but growing naturally to the height of twenty
feet, they were thirty years old. The best coffee was said to be
picked out by a little wild cat or racoon, which eats the fleshy
part and leaves the berries on the ground to be picked up and
sold. At Djampang many of the fine old forest-trees had been
left to shade the coffee ; some varieties of banyan were very
curious. We saw a crowd of monkeys in one tree. One of
these creatures made a jump which might almost be called a
flight. It was a land of jumping or flying creatures — lizards,
frogs, foxes, and even spiders flying, or seeming to do so. I
saw a huge spider turn and fly at a man who was trying to
catch it. He was not frightened (though it was said to be
poisonous), but got hold of all its legs in a bunch behind, so
that it could do him no harm.

On my return to Malang, Mr. MacL. arranged that I should
go back to Soerabaja by the direct road, fifty miles in a country
cart for fifteen guelders ; the post would have cost eighty-
five, and I preferred this mode of travelling, as I should see

VOL. I T

274 Recollections of a Happy Life CHAP.

more of the country. The carriage was a long covered
machine on two wheels, with no seat but a hard board-flooring,
on which I stretched my poor old bones, setting my back
against my trunk. The cart had springs and two capital
ponies to drag it, but these were so small that I wondered how
they ever kept on their legs when I got in. The driver sat on his
heels in front. I enjoyed going slowly and stopping to rest
often, when I could sketch the people in the little wayside
places ; but after the first half of the way my driver got tired
(not his horses), and tried to sell me to every carriage he
passed, but none of them would take me on as cheaply as he
wanted, so he had to go on, grumbling all the way. At sun-
set, when we were resting at a roadside tea-house, another
cart came up also to rest, containing a young German, and as
neither he nor I had met any other Europeans all day we had
a grand talk, when he found I " could Deutsch," and he gave
me some Rhine wine out of a long-necked genuine bottle which
was most delicious. Those native tea-houses are very con-
venient ; all sorts of nice rice- and corn-cakes with eggs and
tea could always be bought there, and the people in them were
friendly and kind.

When the moon rose the German and I went on our dif-
ferent ways, my driver grumbling so incessantly that at last I
stopped him before a brightly-lighted verandah, went through
the garden up to it, and asked a lady and gentleman sitting
there what language they could speak. They were most
kind and hospitable in French, and the gentleman came out
and ordered my coachman roughly to go on to his destination,
and not to bother me by his grumbling. He said the horses
were all right ; the man was only lazy and in want of a scold-
ing. After that he went on quite gaily, singing (as they call
the tremendous noise natives make in their throats when
happy !). The moon was bright, and the bananas, palms and
breadfruit trees looked lovely with all the neat little houses.
The long suburbs of the great city were as light as day, and

VIT Borneo and Java 275

by about half-past eleven I had guided my coachman through
all the right streets to the house of my friends, to find every
one asleep and the lights all out! I wandered about after
paying my man, knocking at doors and windows in vain, and
prepared to sleep on my trunks under the verandah. I must do
my driver the justice to say he would not leave me alone there,
but determined to stay too till some one came, and squatted
down by his horses to wait. I was tired of rubbing my
edges off against that old portmanteau, so went to the great
verandah to get a rocking-chair, and found the natives sleeping
there. After some kicking and shouting the magic word
" Ingus " they roused up and went in search of my key. At
the same moment Mrs. S. H. drove home from a party and
welcomed me most heartily. She had told her servants to
keep a light in my room and expect me, but these town-people
were not like the mountaineers, and did nothing when the eye
of the mistress was off them.

It was nice to wake up in a comfortable room the next
morning, and to find the little charcoal-heating machine on
the table outside, with its excellent pot of coffee and milk on
the top, and pretty china cups. I felt almost friendly even
to the seven children with eyes all on their finger-ends, who
swarmed in and out all day with their black attendants and
dogs. Their poor father was oppressed with work, and used
to come back half-dead every night from his hot office in the
city, and must have been more bored by the weight of such a
lot of unmannered babies than any one else ; but he escaped the
midday meal, which was like a scene at the Zoo, and did not
improve one's appetite. My hostess lived in disorder all day,
and never went out till it was nearly dark. She said there
was no beauty in the place (which she never looked at by
daylight). I found much to admire along the edge of the fine
river, full of strangely coloured barges, shaded by palms and
fine trees, with picturesque native as well as Dutch houses
interspersed, and grand distant volcanoes peeping over them.

276 Recollections of a Happy Life CHAP.

Of course every one drove along the same road of an
evening.

One saw odd collections of people, big Chinamen riding
small ponies with their feet barely off the ground, and gorgeous
native princes with gilt umbrellas held high over their heads
by servants squatting behind, not to shelter them from the
sun (which had long sunk behind the horizon), but to show
their rank. They had noble English horses and gorgeous
liveried servants, with brightly-coloured sarongs, and hats like
shields or dish-covers elaborately gilt and painted on their
heads over their turbans, and tied with a cloth under their
chins as if they had the toothache. They kept flocks of geese
in all the gardens round the houses in Soerabaja, as the noise
they made was said to drive off all snakes ! But the weather
was too hot for enjoyment down by the sea, so I took the
next steamer and returned to Samarang, where the captain
was good enough to land xme and put me in a carriage, telling
it to take me to M 'Neil's. Instead of to the bank, it took me to
the manager's house — a splendid villa with marble floors, and
Japanese pots of roses and carnations all round the verandah.
A nice English nurse came out and told me master was getting
up and would soon come. I felt quite sorry to spoil his
Sunday's rest. He was most kind, wrote me letters, and put
me into a nice cool room to wait till it was time to catch the
train, and sent me in a good breakfast after my bath. So I
got out of Samarang before the mosquitoes even knew I was in
it, and reached Solo or Soerakarte at sunset by a slow train,
which took me through a rather desolate tract of country with
burning forests, showing plainly we were out of Dutch rule
and order.

I found quarters in a little mat inn close to the station,
and the next morning had two hours' drive about the city, and
satisfied myself I did not care to see more, the Emperor and
his 999 wives included. I called on the Resident, who said,
" Oh yes, Prambanan was well worth seeing," and he would

vii Borneo and Java 277

give me a letter to the Assistant Eesident at Klaten, who
could easily take me there. Of course I thought it must be
close to Klaten ; so I started by the next train, and on arriving
at a rather lonely station, got a boy to show me the way to
the Assistant Resident's — a good half-mile through scorching
sand, about three o'clock, and in the full heat. I found the
whole household taking its siesta, and when at last a black
servant appeared, he took my letter, pointed to a rocking-
chair, and put his finger on his lips. I waited, fell into the
way of the house myself, and took a sleep too. Then tea
appeared, and the master, who said Prambanan was two
stations farther off, and I must stop the night with them,
then his brother should go there with me in the morning.
The family was a charming one. They walked about with
me, showed me all their curiosities, and took me for a delicious
moonlight drive, when the fireflies gave almost as strong a
light as the moon herself ; and next morning I was taken to
the old Hindu ruins. They were much scattered over the
plain ; and the chief, who considered it his duty to accompany
us, would insist on having his gilt umbrella of state held over
my head. It had a stick three yards long, with no end of
fringes and ornamentation, and I felt the dignity almost too
much for me.

The ruins were more curious than beautiful, with many
colossal figures of the gods, the same as those I afterwards saw
in India. Mr. Jan Bor had to leave before me, so I stayed and
finished sketching, with the umbrella and the Resident's Head
Man to take care of me ; and then was driven in by the heat
to the station, to wait three hours, to the great enjoyment of
its poor Tyrolean master, who seldom got a chance of talking
his native tongue to one who knew Meran, his beloved Vater-
stadt. Poor fellow ! he was a victim to fever, and had a
decanter of carbolic acid and water ready mixed in the corner
of the room, which he said suited him better than quinine.
He was a good fellow, and I liked listening to his sixteen

278 Recollections of a Happy Life CHAP.

years' experience of Java. The country all round him was
filled with rice and indigo (mostly under water), irrigated by
a system of terraces in as perfect a way as could be shown in
any part of the world. The great slate-coloured buffaloes were
ploughing through the mud, with the driver raised on a high
seat behind them, and often a small boy on their backs.
Those beasts have been known to kill a tiger in defence of the
children who take care of them.

While I was gossiping in the room of the Tyrolese, the
chief came in with his umbrella and followers, one of them
bringing a teapot, cup, and sugar under a cloth for me. They
all squatted round us, and would not go till they had seen me
into the train and off for Djocia — the biggest town of Java, the
residence of its native Sultan, and a great stumblingblock to
Dutch order in the island. But every one said he would soon
be bought off and pensioned. The great square in front of his
palace is surrounded by big trees cut like umbrellas, the
symbol of greatness in those parts ; and a huge elephant is
chained up at one corner. There was an excellent hotel, and
a charming doctor living there who had written books about
the Java volcanoes. He worshipped Darwin, and had his
photograph, which he showed me. The Eesident sent me in
his carriage to the tombs of the Sultans, which were poor
things, but curious in their way. There was a huge yellow
turtle in a tank, which was fed on meat. I could not make
out what he had to do with the tombs. He was probably a
last remainder of Hinduism. There were also some fine carved
gateways and banyan trees. The chief had had a most tempt-
ing breakfast spread out for me under one of them, of cakes,
fruit, tea, and what he thought most of, bread and butter ; and
he insisted on my taking a large water-melon away with me,
in case I got thirsty on the road. When I departed all the
population clapped me as if I had been a successful comedy.

I left Djocia in a grand post-carriage and four, with two
extra horses to drag me up the hills, and ten men waiting to

VII

Borneo and Java 279

haul and push me over the dried-up river beds and lava streams
(for grand volcanoes were on all sides). We crossed a most
primitive ferry on a great bamboo-mat floor, laid over two
boats, with men in hats as big as targets, pulling the thing
over by two ropes made of rattan of enormous length. The
horses were taken out, the carriage taken down and dragged
up from the ferry by men. It was a most lively spot, always
full of people going and coming, and animals standing or
swimming in the cool clear water. Soon after passing it,
we came to a huge cotton-tree, which had nearly strangled
and swallowed up an exquisite little temple. Two sides of
it were hidden entirely by the roots, between which the
poor, crushed, but finely-carved stones peeped out. It was
the tallest tree in all the country round, and towered up
twice as high as the cocoa-nut plantations near it. The stem
must have been quite a hundred feet high before it de-
veloped any branches. Another sort of cotton -tree was
planted along all the post- roads to act as telegraph posts,
the peculiar way its branches were arranged at right angles
to the stem being very convenient for isolating the wires.
All the pillows and beds were stuffed with the contents of
its pods.

About a mile beyond the giant tree and tiny temple we
came to the great pyramid or monastery of Boro-Bodo, or
Buddoer. At its foot an avenue of tall kanari trees and
statues of Buddha lead up to a pattern little mat rest-house,
and the farmhouse of its manager. The house contained ar
central feeding-room and three small bedrooms. From the
front verandah we had a good view of the magnificent pile
of building, a perfect museum, containing the whole history
of Buddha in a series of basso-relievos, lining seven terraces
round the stone-covered hills, which, if stretched out consecu-
tively, would cover three miles. There were four hundred
sitting statues of the holy man, larger than life, the upper
ones under dagobas or hencoops of stone, Many of them had

280 Recollections of a Happy Life CHAP.

been knocked over by earthquakes, which had cracked the
whole, and thrown the walls so much out of the perpendi-
cular that it was a marvel how it all held together without
.cement of any kind. The whole was surmounted by a dome.
From the top terraces was the very finest view I ever saw :
a vast plain, covered with the richest cultivation — rice,
indigo, corn, mandioca, tea, and tobacco, with the one giant
cotton-tree rising above everything else, and groves of cocoa-
nuts dotted all over it, under which the great population
hid their neat little villages of small thatched baskets. Three
magnificent volcanoes arose out of it, with grand sweeping
curves and angles, besides many other ragged-edged moun-
tains. Every turn gave one fresh pictures; and if Boro-
Bodo were not there I should still think it one of the finest
landscapes I ever saw.

The sun used to rise just behind the highest volcano,
tipping the others with rose-colour, throwing a long shadow
on the miles of cotton-wool mist below, through which the
cocoa-nuts cut their way here and there. In half an hour all
the clouds rose and hid the great mountain for the rest of the
day. It is the second highest in Java, and only a few years
ago buried forty villages during an eruption. At sunset the
mountains were generally seen again. I never missed climbing
the pyramids night or morning, and was always rewarded by
some curious and beautiful effect of colour and cloud, and
always found new stories in the great stone picture-book on
my way up and down. I longed for Mr. Fergusson at my side
to explain it all to me. Some of the carvings are very fine.
The figures have often much beauty and expression in them,
and are divided by exquisitely fanciful scroll-work, arabesques
of flowers, birds, and mythological animals.

I had the place all to myself, and the good farmer and his
son gave me all sorts of good things to eat, all on one plate.
I never had any idea what they were made of. The house was
surrounded by cows and goats, cocks and hens, and was a genuine

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farm. The landlord was very fat, and not elegant in the
afternoon, when he dropped all his clothes but his sarong or
petticoat; but he was a capital old fellow, and took the
greatest care of me, walking up with an umbrella to fetch me
home himself one day, when he thought I had sat too long
out in the midday sun.

I wished there had been no watchman at night. He used
to beat a drum incessantly, sometimes a mile off, coming closer
and closer till all the dogs got mad with fury and ready to
fly at him. He used to tell the people to " wake up and guard
the house," then all the people who were sleeping on the
different mats round it screamed at him. That took place
three times every night. Sleep was impossible. What use
could such a noisy guardian be ? All the thieves could hear
him and get out of his way. He carried a long fork of wood,
and caught evil-doers by the neck with it, " they " said.

Four miles from Boro-Bodo was the other curious monu-
ment of Mendoot, only accidentally discovered a few years
before I went there, under the mound of earth by means of
which it was originally built up. It is said to be Hindu, and
its carvings are worthy of the old Greeks, so polished and
exquisitely designed and finished are they. The statue of
Buddha inside, preaching, might have done for a Jupiter or a
Memnon. It is of gray granite, quite colossal, as are his two
friends on either side of him. The calm beauty of the great
preacher haunts me still, and I was fool enough to waste two
mornings in trying to paint it, of course failing utterly.

I took some bread in my pocket the second day, and told
the old landlord I should walk home ; but when I had got over
the ferry I found him waiting for me, with his brisk little
ponies and double -seated carriage like two arm-chairs, one
person only being intended to sit on each, and the front had
been well stretched to hold him. He laughed and shook half
the way home at the idea of my being allowed to walk, and would
charge nothing in the bill for fetching me, good old fellow !

282 Recollections of a Happy Life CHAP.

All the animals were fond of him. His house was surrounded
by bird-cages, and the great kanari trees were full of singing-
birds' nests. Those trees grow very tall. The timber is
invaluable, and the nut good to eat when once the shell is
broken, but it is as hard as a stone. Wallace's description
of the way the black cockatoo gets through it is one of the
most interesting things in his book, which was a Bible to me
in Java, all he says being thoroughly true.

I had nearly exhausted my purse when I got to Magelang,
two posts farther, with four horses ; but I had a letter of
credit on the landlord of the hotel there. The bankers have
a capital system in Java of giving one credit for small sums
on private individuals, so that one has not to run the risk of
taking much money about in one's pocket. Magelang is a
large place, the capital of Kadoe, with the usual central square
of banyan trees. Every one was most kind, and the Resident
asked me to come and stay; but I did not wish to linger
there. There was a grand view of the Soembing volcano
from his garden, with the whole gently-rising plain covered
with rice terraces and running water over them, trickling from
one to the other. Deep below was all that was left of the
river at that season, crossed by a bamboo bridge like a gigantic
cobweb made of those great canes, which grow to a hundred feet
high about Magelang. The garden was full of rare trees, but
had been much neglected by the former Resident. Some of
the statues from Boro-Bodo had been placed in it A
Chinese artist was "restoring" these, lengthening the eyes,
flattening the nose, and turning them into regular Chinese
ideals of Buddha.

Mr. van Baak wrote a letter for me to the Resident of
Wonosobo when he found I was determined to visit the
Dieng ; and my landlord sent on a horse to the foot of the
pass to which I drove. There the chief as usual made me
welcome, introducing me to his principal wife, a nice sensible
old lady, who took me into her rooms and introduced me to

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Borneo and Java 283

Number Two, whom she visibly considered a "gay giddy
thing," covered with gold ornaments, and did not care that I
should admire her too much, but soon took me by the hand
and led me away. I had a good old horse, but a man's saddle,
which I never enjoy, and three coolies to start with, who hung
the trunks on two crossed bamboos tied at the junction, running
themselves at each corner of a triangle, one at each side of
the trunks and one behind; but as soon as they were out
of sight of the chief they declared themselves hungry, and
would have stopped to sleep too if I had not started back to
appeal to him, when they begged forgiveness and came on.
It was nearly eleven before we were off; then one of them
sat down and declared himself "sakit," but the two others
took off the cross-bamboo and went on twice as well without
him. It was a long drag, and nearly sunset before I mounted
the hill of Wonosobo — a perfect marvel of richness, and a
great contrast to the bare hills we had crossed. On them,
however, I found one gem — a perfectly green orchid, and looked
forward to a day's rest in a comfortable house, and time to
paint it. But there was no hotel, and the Eesidency was
being painted, the family in Europe. However, after some
delay the Eesident appeared, a singularly nervous man but
very good, and before we parted next morning he had become
quite hospitable in his offers that I should remain or return,
and wrote me many elaborate directions for my future pro-
ceedings.

The only horse to be had, I was warned, was " peculiar " — a
mild term, for he required three men to hold his head when I
mounted the next morning, and two to lead him the first mile,
after which he tossed me off and tried to macadamise me,
while my foot was still caught in the stirrup and his heels
close to my head. I felt sure death was coming, and felt quite
comfortable, but thought he was a long while about it. I had
no fear, only wished it over. Then the stirrup-leather broke,
the brute got out of my way, and I got up none the worse. I

284 Recollections of a Happy Life CHAP.

never saw such a picture of fear as the face of the poor fellow
who had led the horse. He was trembling all over ; his eyes
were starting from his head ; he could not move for some
moments. I only thought of restoring him to his senses:
I stroked his poor hand which had been hurt by the horse
crushing him against the rocky bank. Then I set to work to
make a new stirrup with a bit of twisted bamboo rope he had
in his hand, after which I remounted, and we went on plac-
ably and even sluggishly when the steep hills came, the only
drawback being that the side-saddle had been made for a small
child, not a woman, and was always turning round under me.

At Garoeng I gave my letter to a most practical and gentle-
manly chief, who wore a very stiff stick-up collar and cuffs
under his jacket. He proceeded to dictate a letter to some
other chiefs about me, telling them to feed me and pass me on,
and tightened up my saddle himself. His house had most
picturesque high roofs with carved terminals, and was already
in the clouds. He and his Head Man accompanied me on to
the next chief, and we went round to see a lake black as ink
(an old crater probably). Old carved stones were scattered on
the banks. The next chief gave me more tea and biscuits,
and a state umbrella carried by his Head Man to accompany
me. Strawberries were flowering in his garden, and cinchona
growing over them. I passed fields of tea full of flowers. The
road got always steeper and my beast lazier, and I walked all
the last part of the way. The scenery grew very wild, like
the top of the St. Gothard ; then the plants became like those
of Europe (except the tree-ferns, ground orchids, and holly-
hocks). At last I reached the rest-house and small village of
the Dieng, 6000 feet above the sea, on a small filled-up crater,
a pass between the tops of two mountains.

It was so cold that I was delighted to roast myself by a
great wood-fire. My bed was against the other side of the
chimney, and I was right glad of the blanket I brought up
with me. The next morning the chief's cream-coloured pony

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was brought for me to mount, and absolutely refused to hear
of such a thing, turning round and round, kicking, neighing,
and snorting, so I sent it back and walked. The men all tried
to get up, with the same success. It was a funny scene. We
all laughed, including the pony ! I had a most interesting
walk among the scattered ruins of tombs, temples, aqueducts,
and foundations of big buildings, whose very use and history
are unknown. We passed lovely lakes of different colours, saw
the mud springs boiling up, and the coils of smoke from them
in all directions, with a strong smell of sulphur. Only certain
narrow paths were safe to tread on, the rest being a mere
treacherous and broiling crust, which would bear no human
weight. It was all rather horrid, and the cold caused me such
suffering that I determined to get down the shortest way to
warmth again.

I had a most pleasant ride of eight hours on an excellent
horse, which made the Wonosobo saddle also unobjectionable.
The young chief, after running round and round the cream-
coloured pony for a quarter of an hour, succeeded in mount-
ing him, and rode with me, while my pretty horse went as
quietly as a lamb. Java ponies have a habit of resisting their
riders' getting on their backs, and showing fight at first, but
are excellent and untirable after they are once started. The
views were magnificent. We had a long mountain-pass to
cross, and much bare moorland. At one place we passed acres
of tea in flower with cinchona amongst it. I saw a white-
coated Dutchman looking after his coolies, and to my sur-
prise he came up and called me by my name, asking me if I
had had a pleasant journey. He had seen me on board one
of the steamers, and welcomed me like an old friend (though
I had no remembrance of him). He offered me all kinds of
hospitality. I had seen no white man for three days, and
enjoyed a talk with him, he in Dutch, I in German ; and he
explained to my chief that I wanted a country carriage to take
me on to Temanggoeng when I got down to the road.

286 Recollections of a Happy Life CHAP.

The next thing I saw was the source of a great river and
glorious springs, surrounded by another monkey colony, a
remnant of the Hindus. There were great trees and rose-
hedges all round. Then we descended again till we reached
Nagaredge and went to the Controller's house, a half-caste
hunchback, who scolded my chief for even suggesting a car-
riage, and ordered him to go on and not bother him. I
produced my magic letter, when the manner changed instantly !
I was bowed into a rocking-chair, and a cup of tea produced ;
but I did not like the man, and decided to go on over five
miles of glaring road under the midday sun to the next place,
where the chief lived who had started me over the pass to
Wonosobo.

Our horses went on quite gaily. I was received like an
old friend. My Dieng chief was treated like a gentleman
and given a mat and tea too, and soon they packed me into
a carriage which brought me to the Resident's big house at
Temanggoeng, where two most dear ladies covered me with
kindness. They were like female Cheeryble Brothers. One
of them was constantly suggesting to the other some new
thought for my comfort ; the other thanked her most humbly,
and blamed herself for not having thought of it earlier. The
children were lovely and in perfect order, and the Resident
one of the best specimens I had seen of a high-class Dutch-
man. I spent four delightful days there, and had a huge
garden-room all to myself. The roses outside would have
taken prizes in any show. They had my clothes mended,
washed, and brushed, and took me lovely drives all round
the country, seeming as if they could never do enough for
me, speaking perfect English too. The crops on the plain
about Temanggoeng and under its five volcanoes were enor-
mous, water flowing everywhere from magnificent springs,
economised with a marvellous system of terrace-irrigation —
rice, sugar, coffee, tea, maize, indigo, and great groves of
every kind of fruit-tree. The massive sugar-palm I had never

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Borneo and Java 287

seen in such quantity before. One tree would more than fill
a good big cart with its fruit.

There were grand markets, and people used to walk
miles with nothing but bundles of banana-leaves on their
heads : these were used in a hundred ways — to cook on, eat
on, as paper for doing up parcels (pinned with a thorn of
the wild palm or cactus), to thatch houses and keep sun or
rain off young plants or seeds, as well as to make mats and
baskets of.

In the evening the two fair-haired little girls of eight and
six used to sit on their little chairs at a tiny table and play at
cards, with a negro servant in a gorgeous livery squatting
between them, all three most intent on their work, with a back-
ground of roses in pots under the marble-floored portico, and
the moonlit garden and mountain beyond. It always reminded
me of Millais' famous study of Mr. Lehmann's little daughter.
This would have been a still better subject for him. They
had grand dogs of noble race, and all sorts of other pets. One
night we went out to see a Chinese festival and fireworks.
The latter were all fastened to tall poles, beginning at the base
and lighting their way gradually to the top without any
human hand touching them ; they became in the end a perfect
pyramid of different-coloured fires. The effect was very fine ;
also the curious crowd below, with the bright light on their
upturned faces, was a sight worth coming across the world to
see. There are some thousands of Chinese about that country.
They come first into a district carrying a few tapes, buttons,
or sugar-plums for sale on their own shoulders. Two years
afterwards they have a man or two to do the carrying for
them, then a horse for themselves to ride, then a shop, and
finally they become rich men with horses, carriages, and
liveried servants; but they always retain their pigtail and
simple dress, and generally stick to the original district where
they are known and respected. I got a great respect for them
at last, and used to ask my way or other help of a Chinaman

288 Recollections of a Happy Life CHAP.

in preference to any other Asiatic. They were always so
practical and quick to understand what I wanted.

My journey on to Amberawa was a difficult one, the road
very bad and horses worse; one poor thing lay down five
times, and at last had to be tied up to a tree and left behind.
However, the whole day was before me, and I did not care to
hurry ; but as every hole was full at the hotel, I had again to
claim hospitality of the Resident, who had three strangers
already in his house, but made room for me somehow. I met
another man who had met me in a steamer. Every one seemed
to know all about me. My host was an old bachelor, with a
clever brown housekeeper who kept everything in apple-pie
order. He took me to see the camp near by and the great
fortress — a piece of extrvagance the Dutch now bitterly
repent of, as a few Armstrong guns could knock it all to pieces,
and it is in a most feverish position.

My host said if I would stay longer he would show me
many curious things, but I went on the next day to Samarang,
thence by steamer back to Batavia, and thence up to my old
quarters at Buitenzorg for a few days' rest ; after which I took
a country carriage with three horses, with extra men to push
it when necessary up the very steepest hills, and walked myself
up most of the splendid road over the Megamendoeng Pass.
There were strings of people going and coming all the way,
carrying heavy loads on their heads or from the ends of the
bamboos on their shoulders. Near the top is a deep black lake
in an old crater which I went down some steps to see. While
there a shower of rain came on, and my guide picked two
wild banana-leaves and covered me up with them instead of
with an umbrella. The large-leaved ferns and arrow-headed
leaves of different sorts were most magnificent. Then we
descended considerably to Sindang Sari, where there was a
kind of hotel and hospital for soldiers managed by an old and
somewhat eccentric Dr. Plum. He was a philanthropist, and
took up odd people who did not always turn out creditably.

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Borneo and Java 289

His housekeeper was so drunk she could neither speak nor
stand when I arrived. But when I had got rid of her over-
anxiety to help me I soon made myself at home, with a good
room and delicious wide verandah on the upper floor.

There were some nice invalid officers and their wives in the
house, who were very friendly. The garden was full of fore-
ground studies — ferns, aralias, daturas, and areca-palms growing
in a half-wild and most picturesque way amongst rocks and
running water, with delicious baths large enough to swim
in, through which the water ran in and out continually ;
beyond all were the grand forests and great volcanoes of Gede,
Under it, about four miles off, was a branch of the Botanical
Gardens about 5000 feet above the sea, where the director
had a bungalow and spent the summer. His wife talked good
English, and took pains to inform me she did not live there,
but merely endured it for some months every summer, for the
sake of her children. She little knew how I envied her
position, within a few minutes' stroll of the wildest virgin
forest. The aralias and pandanus were most elegant, and
there were masses of a large cane -like plant with a creeping
root, called the "patjuy," which produces great bulb-like
shoots from the root, of the most beautiful carmine tint,
having scarlet flowers and fruits hidden inside. These
resemble miniature cobs of Indian corn, full of refreshing juice.
They are quite treasures to thirsty travellers.

The doctor mounted me on a splendid piebald horse, which
took me one day four miles further into the forest, to see a
waterfall in a regular grove of tree-ferns. We went up and
down perfect ladders, and my horse was so entirely sure-
footed that I never thought of dismounting. Above the
forest, on the Gede volcano, many curious alpine plants are
to be found, the most famous being the Primula imperialis.
The doctor procured some plants for me ; but they were all
out of flower, which was a great disappointment.

Houses do not take long to build in Java, and eight men

VOL. i u

290 Recollections of a Happy Life CHAP.

can move a mat house in a few hours. They have generally
some neat geometrical pattern woven in them ; the terminals
are carved into the shapes of lobster claws and goats' horns
to ward off the evil eye. The natives used to sit before their
houses, weaving a coarse kind of cotton dyed beforehand, and
generally produced an ugly plaid pattern of large squares
which they delighted in. The sarongs they printed in a
peculiar way by painting the white part with some kind of
wax, so that when soaked in the indigo or other dye, that part
is protected and comes out untinted. Some of the patterns
are like those on the Persian rugs.

From the doctor's, six hours in a country cart took me to
Tanchur, where the Assistant Resident and his nice family took
me in. I stayed there two days and painted the vanilla, with
its lovely greenish-white orchidaceous flower-pods and fleshy
leaves. I had not seen it in full beauty before. It was a
real pleasure to look at my hostess and her sister, they were
both so fair and amiable. The Resident of Bendoeng picked
me up there, and took me on with him in a grand carriage
with six horses. He had ruled the Preanger for eighteen
years, the highest and largest province of Java, and was a
very great man indeed.

We went like the wind. Buffaloes were waiting at all the
hills, and coolies to push and pull at the steepest parts. The
road was magnificent except at those places, and we went as
fast as on an ordinary railway, with a train of mounted chiefs
before and behind. At every district fresh ones joined us on
the most frantic little horses, and when the great man deigned
to speak to them they dismounted, and went down on their
heels like frogs ; every living soul did the same as the carriage
came up, getting into the lowest ditch they could find. It
v looked very funny in the markets and crowded places we
passed, to see every one suddenly lowered. Besides myself,
the Resident had picked up an artist lately married, who
was suffering from his lungs and going to try a month in

vii Borneo and Java 291

higher air. We crossed the river twice, going down almost
perpendicular roads and up again, and were dragged by men
over a most picturesque ferry; but a new road and bridge
were making, and in ten years there would probably be a
railway too. We also crossed a range of chalk hills covered
with woods in their autumn tints, which might have been in
England. The people got more and more civilised, and the
chiefs wore black alpaca suits like Europeans, all but their
heads, which were still neatly turbaned over their knot of
back hair and its comb. I was sorry to see the European dress
creeping in; it never looks dignified on an Asiatic. Their
horses were marvels of grace and activity, though very
small.

We passed, at the top of a pass, a lake quite full of huge
long-stalked pink lotus (nelumbium) in full flower, a glorious
sight; but the weather was so uncertain that the Eesident
advised my going on the next day while it lasted tolerably
fine, and staying with him on my return ; so he started me
himself and gave me breakfast at five the next morning,
packing my trunks into the carriage with his own hands. He
was a most wonderful man, and never spared himself. He
could improvise on the piano most tastefully, and when he
got tired and bothered with work or worry, had the habit of
sitting down to the piano to refresh himself ; he said he felt
quite a new man after a few moments of " fantasieren."

My driver was an Indian with hair on his mouth and chin,
very unlike the natives of Java. He had jokes for every one,
and took the greatest care of me. His two tiny ponies only
rested once in forty miles, but it was a hard pull; four
times we had four men to drag and push us over the steep
hills. The scenery was so exceedingly beautiful that it was
worth coming, in spite of the almost incessant rain. I was
glad to get out my blanket and put it over my knees and
shoulders to keep out the cold and damp. The rain-clouds
cast a bloom over the mountains I had never seen before. The

292 Recollections of a Happy Life CHAP.

greens seemed greener, and the colour of the nearly ripe rice
was quite dazzling. We passed over a rich plain a little
before five, and soon after arrived at the ferry of Garoet, to
find it broken and impassable, the boats half-full of water, and
the yellow river rushing like a mill-race. A motley crowd
were waiting till it was mended, and I had a long conversa-
tion about it (in our respective tongues) with a Chinese
merchant, who was travelling with a train of coolies, with piles
of Lancashire prints hung to their bamboos. But my man
said it was of no use waiting, and we turned back and begged
hospitality of the "Assistant," as he called him, of Trogan, a
young Dutchman with a pretty delicate wife and four babies.
They were both too nervous to talk anything but Malay at
first, but in time they found some words of French.

I was on my way to the house of Herr Holle, who lived on
the hills behind Garoet, and I had a letter to the native Prince
or Regent there to send me on. I was taken the next morning
to see the hot springs at the foot of the Goentoer volcano,
whose lava-stream looked fearfully fresh and new. The hot
water rushed out of a tangle of the richest hot-house vegeta-
tion I ever saw. A succession of tanks below the spring were
divided by green banks covered with bananas, grasses, and
huge caladium leaves, dark volcanic stones making delightful
backgrounds to those green masses, while little bamboo-houses
on stilts were reflected in the water. There were people in
red sarongs bathing and fishing in the warm water, their
fishing being done with hand-baskets like sieves. We had
some of these brought for us to look at, and they were full of
strange little green shrimps, beetles, and other nasty things,
all of which they dried and ate with their everlasting rice.

The children had some strange pets in the house. One of
them was a " fretful porcupine " which ran about loose, and
delighted especially in hiding under my bed ! She liked to
have her nose tickled, and to nestle close to my feet. She
was on the best of terms with the dogs, but rustled up all her

vii Borneo and Java 293.

spines if interfered with, and the dogs had the sense to leave
her a wide margin. There were two little pumats, something
between cats and ferrets, with very beautiful fur, but not good
countenances. These were the small animals who picked out
the best coffee, eating the outer part, and leaving the nibs for
the humans to collect and sell. Cats in Java, like those in
the Isle of Man, have hardly any tails.

The house was buried (like all the native houses) in a grove
of cocoa-nut trees. It faced the high road, and every native
who passed got off his horse and led it past the house of the
white official, though my host was only a humble specimen of
his class. They only pay the same respect to the Dutch they
do to their own chiefs, and I still think we should have done
more wisely in our Indian colonies if we had kept up the same
old manners of the country. Ignorant people think very much
of outside signs of respect, and take us at our own estimation.

I had almost made up my mind to wait no longer but
return to Bandoeng, when Herr Holle walked in, a grand man
with a strong look that reminded me of Garibaldi, the same
curious mixture of simplicity, power, and gentleness. The
Governor-General called him " our great civiliser." He wore
a fez on his head and sandals with wooden soles like the
country people, but was otherwise more decently dressed than
many of the Dutch country gentlemen. He talked all the
dialects of the country, as well as Sanscrit and Arabic, and his
English was excellent. He devoted his life to improving the
condition of his people in the province, had written books in
their languages, and established schools and other institutions
for their enlightenment and comfort. He had had the ferry
mended, and drove me, in his little single-seated carriage with
two small spirited ponies, through Garoet and up a zigzag
narrow road, 2000 feet above it, to his village and pretty little
house, a model place in every way, ornamented with carved
wood and terra-cotta mouldings, all made by natives under his
directions.

294 Recollections of a Happy Life CHAP.

No door or window was ever locked day or night. The
people passed through the garden from cottage to cottage,
and never stole a flower. Herr Holle said he liked to see
them moving about, and to know they were not afraid of
him. They often came great distances too to beg him to
doctor them or give them advice when in difficulties, and to
work in his tea plantations, which covered miles of hillside.
The winding paths were bordered with cedars, sheds being
built at intervals to shelter the pickers from the rain. No
scene could be more picturesque than those hills crowded with
gaily- dressed people amongst the tea-bushes, the plain of
golden rice and palm -groves below, with grand mountains
beyond, two of them always smoking.

Eleven years before, all this small paradise was a swamp,
the home of tigers and rhinoceros; now, the dear creatures
were not to be seen. I went up to the edge of the impenetrable
forest, where some said they were still hiding. Near it cin-
chona and coffee took the place of tea, while the ferns and
wild bananas were growing on every scrap of uncultivated
ground. I did plenty of painting, but my chief delight was in
hearing my host talk, and seeing him among his people. One
evening he took me to see the children shaking the trees to
collect cockchafers, which they roasted and ate with their
rice. They had a bit of burning wood on the ground, the
insects flew to it, and were caught by the eager little creatures.
So picturesque they looked in the firelight, the whole under
the brightest moon I ever saw. The Government constantly
sent Herr Holle to mediate and arrange difficulties with natives
all over the island. He knew all their peculiarities, proverbs,
and idioms, and could always manage them. His great friend
was the Mufti of Garoet : orthodox old ladies used to say he
was a Muhammadan himself. He knew the Koran by heart,
could convince the people by their own arguments from it,
and met them half-way in most things ; he allowed no pork
on his table, no dogs in his house.

vii Borneo and Java 295

He had plenty of books and illustrations of the antiquities
of Java, and showed me how both Boro-Bodo and Mendoet
were raised, by covering up with earth as the builders went
on, so as to form a long slanting road to the work, over which
they could bring the stones to the very top. Mendoet had
never been uncovered till a few years before, which accounted
for its great smoothness and preservation.

I was taken to see the whole process of tea-culture — picking,
drying, and packing, all so nicely and cleanly done. The
boxes had English labels stuck on them, as they went chiefly
to Australia. The great buffaloes brought their little carts up
the hills and took them away. I saw the schoolhouse, with
the maps and drawings for the pupils to copy. They were
then away during the feast of Ramadan. Herr Holle had
them taught to read and write Dutch ; he said there had been
a great outcry against it at first, but he thought it good to
break down the boundary of races as much as possible, never
hurting the feelings or rubbing against the prejudices of either,
if he could help it. The Muhammadans in the Preanger were
liberally inclined, never having more than one wife, and letting
her go about with her face uncovered like other Javanese
women. He took me to have breakfast with his friend the
Mufti or Priest of Garoet, a most intelligent man, who sent
his daughter to a mixed school for boys and girls. She was
very clever, and had taught herself Dutch so well that she
had made translations of some of Hans Andersen's stories,
and published them in her own language (the Serbanese).

After leaving the Mufti's I was sent on alone, stopping to
shake hands with my kind friends at Trogan, — to Bendoeng,
where I found my magnificent room kept for me still, and a— ,
kind welcome from the energetic Eesident, Mr. Pahut. His
wife was still at Buitenzorg with her sick child, so I had all
my days to myself, and painted a study of the rice-harvest,
which was going on all over that rich high plain on which the
city stands. It was a bright scene, with the golden stacks,

296 Recollections of a Happy Life CHAP.

sheds, and stubble, in which the gaily-clothed people and
hideous buffaloes were buried up to their knees, with glorious
sunshine over it all.

The nice little governess and her invalid artist brother were
still in the house ; the latter complained of the colouring of
Java being " so monotonous," nothing but the same green ! I
never saw the same in any two trees ; the lilacs and blues of
the hills were delicious, the bamboos were just then quite
yellow, and the rice-fields of every tint, from brown-gold to
yellow and green, all full of variety ; I longed to shake the
stupid blind conceit out of the poor limp fellow ! Bendoeng
is a large thriving town, covering a very large space of ground,
as every house stands separately in its own garden. The
Chinese street or bazaar must have been quite a mile long,
and the mosque looked very picturesque, amongst banyan- and
mango-trees, cocoa-nuts and areca-palms.

I found a nice quiet place to paint in, from a raised
terrace in front of a school close to the public road, so that
the admiring crowd could not get within eye-rubbing distance
of me. Once I saw them suddenly sink low in the dust, and
found a beautifully dressed native squatting at my elbow ; it
was the Regent, or native Prince, with whom I had a long
conversation in unknown tongues (I hope he was the wiser !).
He watched my work a long time, then departed, and the
population rose again. They were such a gentle people, never
in one's way. I could not say as much for the Chinese school-
children, who crowded round me in a most unpleasant throng
when their school-hours were over. One boy stood at the
back of my easel, staring at me, so I calmly raised my brush
a little and put a dab of blue at the end of his nose, and the
applause in the street below was uproarious.

The people of the Preanger were far merrier than in other
parts of Java, and wore every shade of red in preference to the
dull indigo blue, which is the favourite colour elsewhere. The
Resident's carriage took me and fetched me from my sketching-

vii Borneo and Java 297

place, with outriders and noble English horses. He himself
was a remarkable young man to have done such an amount
of work in so few years. His father had been Governor-
General, and he had known the country and people all his
life ; he was a perfect king in his own province. Meals were
very irregular, sometimes hours after the appointed time. I
used to get painfully hungry, but could not be cross when the
great man came and fetched me himself on his way to the
dining-room so good-naturedly, talking, laughing, and enter-
taining us all while dinner lasted as if he had nothing else to
do ; after which he set to work again till the next meal came.
Sometimes they had parties in the great portico, and three
whist tables would be in use at once under the hanging baskets
of exquisite ferns and orchids. All round were stands of
splendid flowers — begonias and geraniums. Stag's-horn ferns
were hung up like gigantic green brackets in every corner,
with a perfect cascade of seed-leaves hanging underneath
them. It looked very gay, but I did not find the society
amusing. I was too sleepy after my hard day's work to sit
up for a late supper, and was allowed to go off to bed.

The Eesident arranged to send my trunks back by post ,
he stuck the labels on with his own hands, then packed me
off in a great open carriage with the limp artist and Herr von
Miiller, Head of the " Woods and Forests " of Java. The latter
was always flying about in that great carriage, which had been
built for him in Manchester, with an awning added at Ben-
doeng. He had a table to screw into its middle, and a bed to
pull out at night, and was a most genial good fellow, who
liked to give a lift to his friends, and seldom went alone. He
told me his carriage had already gone 16,000 miles, and had
never had an accident or gone wrong in any way. The young
controller of Bendoeng made a fourth to the party, and we flew
over the ground with six horses all at full gallop, buffaloes and
men to push when needed, ordered to be ready by telegraph
everywhere. We passed two trees quite black with flying-

298 Recollections of a Happy Life CHAP. VH

foxes, taking their siesta with their heads downwards, wrapped
up in their own wings instead of mackintosh cloaks, which these
so much resembled. And near the top of the pass was a lake,
full of the grand Indian lotus.

Travelling with great Javan officials almost takes one's
breath away. We seemed perpetually trying to catch some
phantom train ; horses were waiting at every station, buffaloes
at every hill, men running like furies beside the horses,
shouting, whipping, pushing, and hauling ; people and animals
rushing into ditches to make way and show respect. The
Assistant Resident and his pretty wife were not at Yandjor,
so we ate our rice at a nice little hotel, quite smothered in
greenery. The trees were loaded with fruit all round us, and
it was very hot ; but the road up to Sindang Sari is magni-
ficent. The doctor gave me my old room and a most kind
welcome.

The next day I rode back to the forest of Tchi Boelas,
and the two officials went on a ride of inspection, while " our
artist " and myself painted the same bit of forest scenery so
differently, that no one would take our productions to have
been painted in the same country. His might have been
as well done at home in Holland, with some old Dutch
pictures as his models, all discoloured by brown varnish.
How odd it is that artistic people persist in seeing Nature
everywhere alike and through smoked spectacles !

CHAPTER VIII

CEYLON AND HOME

1876-77

AFTER a few days I returned, to pack up and take leave of
my friends at Buitenzorg. I called on Madame van L. and
heard the billiard-balls in the next room cease to rattle ; the
Governor-General came in and talked for about ten minutes,
then pleaded urgent and important business and disappeared :
I heard the billiard-balls rattle again, and soon after took
my leave. I was rather limp myself and wanted rest and
home, so I gave up my idea of going to the Moluccas, and
went back to Singapore in the same steamer which took me
to Java.

As there was no first-class cabin to be had, the captain
(who always lodged at my hotel at Buitenzorg when on
shore) promised to keep quite as good a one among the
second class for me. He made me sit next him at dinner,
and on my other side I had a first-class Dutchman, who had
the good taste to talk the captain's language, so we were a
sociable little party. In the tug going down the long Batavian
canal, a dreadful woman, with high heels to her boots, two
parrots, and one baby, came and sat next to me. She put
down the baby between the two birds, who deliberately bit
the poor child till it roared with pain, when the woman
cuffed the parrots and the baby too. I could not help remark-
ing to my next neighbour the famous words of Dundreary,
" TV old 'ooman's a lunatic 1 " I made a friend for life of

300 Recollections of a Happy Life CHAP.

a most jolly young Scotch boy named K. Whenever I
went on deck, he got me chairs, telling me all about himself
and his belongings as if I were an old aunt. He said it made
him feel at home to talk to a real Englishwoman again.
When the pilot declared it was too late to take the ship
into harbour, young K. and I went and spoke the old man
fair, and made him land us in his boat. He saw me up safely
to Mr. D.'s, the colonial secretary, where I had promised
to stay for the few days I remained at Singapore that time,
he himself going on to the house of his twin-brother.

The D.s had a cockatoo loose on a perch, which used
to take restless fits and walk over all the furniture in the
room. One morning it walked up on to my knee before I
could remonstrate, and sat there perfectly contented while
I stroked and rubbed it as I would have rubbed and stroked
a cat — every now and then muttering, "Pretty cockatoo,
cockatoo is a pretty creature."

After three days of gossip among my many friends, I
started in the great French ship Amazon, with a good cabin
but unpleasant people. The Dutch passengers sulked by
themselves at one table, the Chinese at another. I was put
among a mixed lot of Britishers, and never spoke a word
for four days. There was a good deal of sea too off Sumatra.
At last a wild Irishman, who had been wandering all over
Australia and New Zealand with his eyes and ears open,
took compassion on me and landed me and my trunks at
Galle, after which he went on to pass the winter on the
Nile and "see if there was anything to shoot there." What
a killing race the British are !

The Oriental Hotel at Galle is famous all over the world.
I stayed there ten days, and saw it in its different aspects.
On mail-days some hundred people thronged into it, and the
street outside became a perfect bazaar. A crowd of ragamuffins
of every sort and nation were to be seen there, amusing and
cheating the Britishers in the verandah — the latter not being

vin Ceylon and Home 30 1

a choice collection of their kind, and much given to "brandy
and soda." Young reckless boys, with hats on the back of
their heads, sent out of England to make fortunes because
they were incapable of doing anything at home, are not the
class to succeed as emigrants. They dressed in all sorts of
ridiculous head-coverings, and used strong language, because
they thought it " manly " to do so. Then there were plenty
of limp ladies, babies, and nurses, going home escorted about
by poor used-up Anglo -Indians. There was a large old
monkey which played tricks, and had done so for thirteen
years, whenever the mails came in. His master found
showing him off so lucrative that he had refused very large
offers to buy him. The monkey looked horribly bored, and
hated the sight of an Anglo-Indian. He had quite a different
manner when I met him one day between the mails; he
shook hands and seemed glad to see me, but could not abide
mail -passengers. There were men with little parrakeets
which sat on their fingers and were all drugged, and died
as soon as they were bought from the ultimate effects of it ;
Jews with sham sapphires, for which they asked ,£30 and
took a rupee (they were all glass), inlaid boxes, ivory elephants,
bangles, sticks, crochet- work and lace from mission-schools ; no
end of clatter ; also people who had sham fights with the two
policemen, ran away, and came back on the other side.

On other days than the mail, Galle was quite dead and
every one slept, not a soul moved in the streets. Mrs. Barker,
the landlady, made me most comfortable, sending all my meals
into my room, and I fixed on a "garry" driver I liked, and
had him every morning to drive me out. I do not think I
knew what cocoa-nuts were till I saw those at Ceylon ; there
they are the weed of weeds, and grow on the actual sea-sand.
The sand was most golden, and the tropical crabs ran over
it like express trains. There were also lovely rocks of rich
red and golden tints scattered about in front of the sea,
and the edge of the sand was bordered with the beautiful

3O2 Recollections of a Happy Life CHAP.

sea-grape (as it was in Jamaica), with masses of pandanus on
their stilted roots. The sea-waves were exquisitely coloured
and clear.

Galle itself stands out into the sea, and is almost an island,
with old walls and forts round it like Cadiz. The Cingalese
looked quite handsome after the Malay race, and were
extremely neat and peacocky in their dress, which was
almost always white ; their hair was most carefully combed,
oiled and knotted up, both men and women wearing the
same combs. One man came to converse with me when out
sketching, with a quart bottle in his hands which he made
me smell. "It is medicated oil; I always use medicated oil
for my hair. Do you use medicated oil for your hair ? " he
said, all spoken in the most priggish and precise way. I
used to have the carriage put somewhere under the trees,
the horses taken out, and so could sketch out of reach of the
crowd, who were not so well disciplined as the people of
Java, and came much in one's way. But the children were
very pretty. " I'se a Christian," said a monkey when I asked
it not to shake the wheels. My driver and his horse had
long baths while I painted, and the former drove me home
with the long shiny waves of black hair spread over his
shoulders and bare back to dry, just as the elegantly dressed
young ladies used to do in Punch a few years ago.

I screamed with delight at the sight of a bright green
chameleon with a long tail and scarlet comb which ran over
the rocks near. My driver made a noose out of a palm-leaf
and caught it for me, but the creature's scarlet comb changed
to green, and he wriggled so much that I let him go again.
It was quite a different creature from those of the Mediter-
ranean.

Bona Vista is a most lovely rocky point three miles from
Galle, on which are a chapel and missionary school, and Mr.
M. (the clergyman there) invited me in to breakfast on his
verandah. They had the most delicious views. The house

viii Ceylon and Home 303

stood amongst granite rocks, which were covered with
parasites and ferns and shaded by palms, the blue sea some
hundred feet below them. Like every one in Ceylon, they
had a vivid remembrance of Miss Gordon Gumming, who
nearly walked the limp parson to death. I got quite tired
of her name, and heard far more about her than about the
beautiful country with its orchids and elephants. A good
old Cingalese waited on me in the hotel ; he had been
thirteen years there, and wanted to go with me all over
the world, he said, "because he liked me." I wondered what
" Elizabeth " would have said to my bringing home a very
languid old native, with a round comb on the top of his
gray hair, which was fastened in a most feminine knot beneath
it, and who wore a jacket and petticoat ! The women wore
loose muslin shirts, very much starched, with enormous sleeves.
After eight days of slow stewing, I started in an open
carriage (the coach) for Colombo with two young Oxford
men for companions, thoroughly nice fellows, just come from
China and Japan. We sent a boy up a cocoa-nut tree at the
first post we stopped at, to ascertain if it were a fact that
the leaves they tied on the trunks could rustle loudly enough
to alarm the owners, when thieves climbed over them. I
still doubt it, but the very reputation of their doing so may
help to keep off thieves. The road was most interesting all
the way, near the beautiful shore or through swamps full of
pandanus and other strange plants, with perpetual villages.
I much missed the neat mat and bamboo houses of Java.
In Ceylon they were mere mud-hovels, and everything was
less neat, the people lazier, but the little bullock-carts were
very pretty ; every " gentleman " kept one, instead of the
"gig" of England. Two wheels and a thatched "ugly"
overhead made a cart, and I have often seen four people all
sitting like frogs on their own heels under one ugly, with a
noble little hump-backed beast to draw it, a mere miniature of
a bullock, not bigger than the smallest pony, but going at a

304 Recollections of a Happy Life CHAP.

regular trot, his pretty gray skin generally cruelly tattooed
in some elaborate pattern. The people, in all sorts of bright-
coloured drapery, wore tall mitres on their heads. The
priests of Buddha all wore yellow drapery and uncovered
heads. There were plenty of flowers, many of those I
remembered having seen in Jamaica.

Colombo is most unattractive, but cooler than Galle. All
its houses seemed in process of being either blown up or pulled
down. My hotel had "temporary" actually printed on its
bills. I sent in my letters to the Governor, and he wrote me
a kind note asking me to breakfast, and offering me all kinds
of hospitality, but I was anxious to get up to Kandy, and
Colombo did not attract me ; so he gave me some more letters
and sent me off in his own "garry" to the station, ordering
a carriage to be reserved for me. Sir William Gregory had
a mongoose brought up to show me, which ate buttered toast
and snakes, killing the latter in the most clever way, springing
on the backs of their necks, pinning them down, strangling
them and never getting bitten itself. I have never heard any
confirmation of the curious story of mongeese combining, one
to amuse the snake while another killed it.

The railroad journey was a most beautiful one, mounting
slowly up 1700 feet to the top of the pass, with superb
views, reminding me of the Petropolis Sierra in Brazil, only
less fine. Everything in Ceylon is on a small scale, but some
of the granite or limestone tops are fantastic in shape, like
castles or towers, and the trees are loaded with creepers.
The cultivation is very scattered and poor after Java, but
none the worse for that in picturesqueness. The tall Taliput-
palm stands out grandly with its head of yellow flower-
feathers, which only comes to it after thirty years of growth,
and is succeeded by the equally magnificent but leafless head
of fruit ; then the whole falls by its great weight and dies.
The great wild palm too with the maiden-hair-fern-like leaves,
called the sugar-palm by the natives, and the ironwood tree,

vni Ceylon and Home 305

made a great show in the landscape, the latter with its brilliant
pink leaves and shoots.

It was dark and raining hard when I reached Kandy, and
I scrambled into one of the clumsy covered Irish cars of the
country, beside a native in a red turban. He turned me out
at the hotel, where a tribe of more idle natives looked on at
me as I tumbled out over the muddy wheels. Nobody offered
a hand to help or to lift my things ; they never even thought
of finding me a room till I got myself into a rage and scolded
them. After a deal of hunting a key was found, which opened
a long slip of a room with three beds and nothing else. When
I declared that would not do for me the man said, " That very
good, that double-bedded room." I said it was more, it was
triple-bedded, but I must have a table and more room, on
which at last they got civiller, found a good room, brought
me some tea and a plate of half-cold hard salt beef and carrots.
Such a lot of men to do it and no head ! in the hotel of
Ceylon's old capital, Kandy ! What a contrast to the inn at
Buitenzorg !

The Governor had told me Mr. Thwaites was going to
Colombo to stay with him the next day, so I ordered a carriage
at six, and drove over to the Botanic Gardens to catch him
before he went. I found the dear old gentleman delighted to
see me ; and, in spite of the drizzling rain, we had a charming
walk round the gardens for two hours. He had planted half
the trees himself, and had seldom been out of it for forty
years, steadily refusing to cut vistas, or make riband-borders
and other inventions of the modern gardener. The trees were
massed together most picturesquely, with creepers growing
over them in a natural and enchanting tangle. The bamboos
were the finest I ever saw, particularly those of Abyssinia, a
tall green variety 60 or 100 feet high. The river wound all "
round the garden, making it one of the choicest spots on earth.
Mr. Thwaites showed me also his exquisite collection of butter-
flies, and promised to give me some of his spare ones. He kept

VOL. i x

306 Recollections of a Happy Life CHAR

that promise most generously; he never said anything he didn't
mean, and detested everything false. He was one of the most
perfect gentlemen I have ever known, and I longed to be able
to stay a while to rest and paint near him and his beautiful
garden. As I was taking leave, I pulled a letter from my
pocket and asked if he knew Mr. L., to whom it was written,
and if it was worth my while to give it ? He said, Oh yes,
he was his best and nearest neighbour, whom he always
called the "Good Samaritan"; that I had better go and
see him at once, as he was sure to be at home on 'Sunday
morning.

So I turned down a pretty lane, and in five minutes found
myself in the garden of Judge L., where his Worship was hard
at work, digging in his shirt-sleeves, far too grimy to shake
hands, but intensely hospitable. He made me promise at
once to move my things and take up my quarters in his spare
rooms, in the most perfect peace and quiet, close to the
gardens and their good old director, and three miles from the
gossip and " Kleinstadterei " of Kandy : it was the very nest
I had been longing for. Mr. L. drove off to his work after
breakfast, never returning until dinner-time, every day, and I
worked all day long in undisturbed quiet. My kind host gave
quarters to all the waifs and strays besides myself. My
nephew Stuart K. S. and other young men used to come
in for a night or two at a time ; the house had seldom any
empty rooms. Mr. L. started for a holiday trip to India
shortly after my arrival, and persuaded me that I should be
doing him quite a kindness by keeping the house going during
his absence and employing his servants. I desired nothing
better than to stay quiet. It was funny feeling so entirely
at home in that little bungalow, and having it all to myself.
Everything was left about as if the master were there — plate
on the sideboard, doors and windows always open, the butler
seldom at home, yet nothing was ever stolen. There was a
deliciously sweet garden round me, and two dogs, two monkeys,

vni Ceylon and Home 307

and some other pets to keep me lively. The carriage was also
to be at my orders, but I did not want it.

Kandy is a cockney sort of place, full of croquet, lawn-
tennis, fashions, and scandal, but very pretty with its little
artificial lake and its monastery and palace half-hidden among
delicious gardens and groves of palms. The Governor-Agent
and Mrs. P. lived in the old palace, and the rooms were full
of quaint figures, half raised on the wall, picked out with
white on a blue ground. One day Mr. P. took me to the
temple and into its most holy chamber, in which the gold
Dagoba or bell which covers Buddha's famous tooth is kept,
always surrounded by piles of yellow and white flowers and
ever-burning lamps. The original tooth was carried off from
Kandy to Burmah many years ago, and is there still ; but as
both teeth were taken from an elephant, it did not matter
much which elephant they came from. The Prince of Wales
alone had been allowed to see it uncovered. The biggest
emerald in the world is said to be also kept under that bell.
Miss G. C. (my Mrs. 'Arris) had nearly caused a rebellion by
looking through her opera -glass at the thing, when it was^
uncovered once during some national ceremony. I spent one
day making a painting in the semi-darkness of the holy place,
trying to give some idea of the yellow flowers, yellow gold,
yellow priest, and yellow light of the thing, which in the
hands of a great artist might have made a rich picture ; but
the want of air, the smell of burning tallow, of flowers, and
of general Buddhism, was almost too much for even my
endurance, and after an hour or so I was glad to get back
to my happy garden home and to quiet.

My host was the most hospitable of men. Before he left
for India he had friends to dinner most days ; but it required
a good deal of diplomacy out there to arrange pleasant parties,
as many of the nearest neighbours were not on speaking terms
with one another. I have often driven round the lake of
Kandy (the Eotten Row of Ceylon) with friends in whose

308 Recollections of a Happy Life CHAP.

house I have been staying, who cut dead the people with
whom I have been lunching ; it was too foolish, and all for
some perfectly trivial little offence. The so-called " religion "
caused many quarrels, the young bishop having excommuni-
cated all the old missionary set, and started all sorts of
ritualistic fashions, which must have delighted those they
both called heathens. So I saw as little as I could help of
all these charming people, and kept quietly at Peradeniya,
working either in my own garden or the Botanical close by,
never going out without finding fresh beauties and curiosities
of nature. Mr. Thwaites also never went into Kandy, and
every evening towards dusk I either walked up to have a
stroll with him, or he came down to me. He was a most
charming companion, giving me always some new flower or
fruit to paint, and having always a cover laid for me at break-
fast, if it suited me to take it in his house instead of my own.
From my window, I could see a thick-stemmed bush (almost
a tree) of the golden-leaved croton, and many pink dracsenas,
while under them were white roses as lovely as any at home.
Then came the lawn, and a great Jack-tree with its huge fruit
(two feet long when ripe) hanging directly from the trunk,
and branches with shining leaves like those of the magnolia.
A cocoa-nut was beside it — a delicious contrast, with its feathery
head, masses of gold-brown fruit, and ivory flowers, like gigantic
egret-plumes. A thick-leaved Gourka-tree stood also on the
lawn, loaded with golden apples, but all hidden away under
the leaves out of sight, The lawn was bordered by a hedge
entirely covered with the blue thunbergia, hiding the road,
along which great bullock-carts were constantly passing, drawn
by splendid beasts with humps conveniently placed for sup-
porting the cross-poles by which they dragged their loads.
Many of them were milk-white, with long straight horns,
almost parallel with their necks. Some of them had their
horns curved like ancient lyres. The drivers were quite in
character with their beasts.

VIII

Ceylon and Home 309

On the other side of the road was an untidy bit of nearly
level ground covered with mandioca (from which tapioca and
cassava are made), looking very much like our hemp-plant;^
bananas, daturas, sunflowers, gorgeous weeds which much
offended the tidy eyes of my absent host, but delighted me ;
a lovely white passion-flower ran all over it, as well as many
kinds of lantana, a plant originally introduced from the
Mauritius, now all over the tropics, and of every possible
colour. Pretty hills of about 800 feet surrounded the wide
valley covered with scrubby trees ; but all looked on a small
scale after Java. There was a noble avenue of india-rubber
trees at the entrance to the great gardens, with their long
tangled roots creeping over the outside of the ground, and
huge supports growing down into it from their heavy branches.
Every way I looked at those trees they were magnificent.
Beyond them one came to groups of different sorts of palm-
trees, with one giant " taliput " in full flower. I settled my-
self to make a study of it, and of the six men with loaded
clubs who were grinding down the stones in the roadway
while they sang a kind of monotonous chant, at the end of
each verse lifting up their clubs and letting them fall with a
thud. It was a slow process, but they like to work in their
own way, and Mr. Thwaites said he knew by the noise they
made they did work continuously, though slowly. If he had
compelled them (as most English did) to work in another
fashion, they would be sitting down and tired out for hours
together. Their own tortoise-like way was well adapted to
the climate, and amused them.

He had a clever Cingalese head-man, and employed another
native to make paintings for him of all the moths and butter-
flies, with their caterpillars and larvae, and the leaves they fed
on, as well as of the fungi and flora of Ceylon. These paint- j
ings were done in water-colours, so exquisitely that one could
see almost every hair in the insect's wings; they were all \
painted from the real thing, without any help from glasses.

3io Recollections of a Happy Life CHAP.

I spent many a delightful hour looking over them and the
beautiful collection of insects Mr. Thwaites had made, hearing
all their habits and histories. He also took me to the different
trees in the garden where they lived and fed, and showed me
their nests.

Sir William Gregory was the only person the old director
ever went to stay with. We both went to dine and sleep at
the Pavilion the only night the Governor was in Kandy.
The gardens were fine, but the house, from long disuse, looked
very comfortless, as its master had not cared to live there since
his wife's death. I was put into the huge state-rooms the
Prince of Wales had occupied last. His Excellency showed
me in, and looked himself to see if they had put my sheets on
the bed, for nobody was there to be responsible but the gardener.
I felt like a sparrow who had by a mistake got into an eagle's
nest, it was such a monstrous place, with one of those odd
bunches of flowers gardeners make all over the world, on the
table — a dahlia in the middle surrounded by gardenias, then
marigolds, geraniums, roses, and heliotrope. Government
Houses too all over the world are nearly as incongruous. This
one had a staircase only a yard wide leading to all these grand
rooms. We were only a party of five, and after dinner we
walked through the dark shrubberies to spend an hour with
the Colonial Secretary and Mrs. B., who were also there for one
night only.

The next morning at six I was at work on my sketch of
the outside of the temple, and breakfasted in the old palace,
when a party of Indian pedlars came and spread out their
gorgeous shawls and other goods on the verandah. They
made a fine foreground to the flowers and palm-trees beyond.
When I got home I found at last a ripe Jack-fruit to finish
my painting from. Denis, the butler, had been constantly
looking up at the tree and promising me one " the day after
to-morrow " ever since I came, and that one always disappeared
and another was looked at with the same answer. Mr. L.'s

viii Ceylon and Home 3 1 1

fruit was always going to be ripe " the day after to-morrow."
Though the natives did not steal spoons, fruit was considered
common property. Denis was a nice quiet fellow, and took
a real pleasure in making me comfortable. He brought me
an extra nice tea when I came back that day, on a huge brass
tray, with a figure of Buddha in the middle of it, a dancing
elephant on each side, and a circle of peacocks all round
the rim.

I spent three days up at Eamboddy, half-way up Nuwara
Eliya, about 5000 feet above the sea, getting there partly by
rail, partly by car. The situation is fine, surrounded by moun-
tains with grand waterfalls all round it ; but the country had
been denuded of trees in order to grow coffee, which was
treated in the usual English fashion — the bushes cut down like
pollards to the height of ordinary gooseberry bushes, and the
leaves pulled off to let in every ray of sun, and force them on
unnaturally. The wind was very high, and I was nearly
blown over when trying to paint the distant view from the
head of one of the falls, with a foreground of datura-bushes
loaded with their big white bells, on each side of the torrent
with its huge boulders. I was still weak, though much better,
but found myself unable to bear any rough journeys, was
glad to get back to my quiet home again, and refused all
invitations to leave it or pay visits.

On Christmas Day I found myself in the midst of small
troubles. Denis was ill with fever. The two dogs were said
to have been bitten by a mad dog, and were locked up in a
wire chicken-cage (from which by the least push they might
easily have escaped). On Thursday I was called out to see the
housekeeper's baby girl, a month old, which had been found
dead in the morning. I went into the cottage, and found the
mother rolling on the ground, throwing dust on her head,
howling, and writhing like a serpent. The man cried, and
put the little cold stiff body into my hands, while the elder
children demanded "sugar-plums," as they always did at the

312 Recollections of a Happy Life CHAP.

sight of me. Soon after it was buried down by the river, and
a lot of crackers were let off to drive away the evil one. (Like
the Chinese, the Tamils thought more of him than of the good
spirit.) A hill clergyman came in to breakfast with me. He
took a forty miles' ride every month, and always rested like
other waifs and strays at Mr. L.'s. He said very possibly
those people had let the child die as it was only a girl, and
they had three already, and would have to give them marriage
portions. It was quite a usual custom to starve them to death
slowly, or poison them. That Mr. M'L. was a sensible man.
He went about the hill-country to the different chapels once a
month, sometimes finding three white men for a congregation,
sometimes none at all. He had no idea of converting the
natives, but said that near the large towns they had found
out " it paid " to pretend to be Christians, so they did pretend.
I did not believe anything about the mad-dog story, but
thought the " boys " wanted to get them out of their way
for some reason. Perhaps, as Denis was not about, they were
going to have their friends on the premises, to whom the dogs
would object, so I had poor old Dick out of his cage, and he
walked up to the gardens with me as usual, carrying a stick
and as grave as a judge (far more so than his master) ; but
old Mr. Thwaites said 1 did wrong, and made me tie him up
again, as he said if any one were bitten I should be blamed.
I submitted, but could not bear to see the poor old dog so
unhappy and a prisoner. The sight of him made me regret
leaving home less, and I went to stay a few days with an
eccentric old gentleman, called generally "the Baron," and
his dear old wife at Kandy, who lived in a little house full
of curiosities, quite under the shade of the Temple Garden,
and close to its pretty lake with its gimcracky balustrade.

The Governor was coming to open the new waterworks,
and a great f£te was to be given in his honour. Thirteen
elephants were collected to make a show. Some of these had
been employed on the work itself, and, I was told, carried

VIII

Ceylon and Home 3 1 3

the great squared stones with their trunks and pushed them
into their places, then made two steps back, took a good
look to see if they were straight, came and gave a few more
pushes, took another look, and were not satisfied unless the
work were done with the greatest neatness. I had been
asked to make a drawing of Lady G.'s grave, and went on
two mornings to the cemetery, picking my way carefully
through the long grass, so as to avoid the clever leeches which
were clinging to the leaves, on the watch for the rare chance
of human legs to fasten on and suck. They never got a
chance with me, it only required care and short petticoats
to avoid them. At the gate of that cemetery was a magnificent
mass of white datura, with the small scarlet ipomoea all over
it, making a most exquisite bit of colour. I had to wait
nearly an hour for the key one day, and much enjoyed it.

The opening ceremony at the waterworks was most
amusing. We all went down into the narrow valley, and
half the white people would not speak to the other half.
Mr. Thwaites, myself, and one or two other odds and ends,
had to be used as buffers to keep them from touching one
another. All the chiefs were collected in a lump, with such
full starched petticoats they could neither sit nor stand.
Pincushions with gold tassels at the corners and buttons on
the tops were on their heads, and tremendous rings on their
fingers. The elephants, which had had level places dug out
of the hillsides for each of their four feet to stand on, were
very nervous about slipping down the hill, and kept up
perpetual moans. The Governor and other officials read
long speeches in a high wind, which no one could hear or
understand, and were very glad, like every one else, when it
was over.

After this my old friend and I went down with the
Governor in his special express to Colombo, where I again
had the Prince of Wales's great empty room, and after a few
days in that dreary grandeur I said good-bye to my kind

314 Recollections of a Happy Life CHAP.

friends, and went on to stay with Mrs. Cameron at Kalutara.
I had long known her glorious photographs, but had never
met her. She had sent me many warm invitations to come
when she heard I was in Ceylon. Her husband had filled a
high office under Macaulay in India, but since then for ten
years he had never moved from his room. At last she made
up her mind to go and live near her sons in Ceylon. Every
one said it would be impossible ; but when told of what she
was going to do, he said that the one wish he had was to
die in Ceylon ! He got up and walked, and had been better
ever since. He was eighty-four, perfectly upright, with long
white hair over his shoulders. He read all day long, taking
walks round and round the verandah at Kalutara with a long
staff in his hand, perfectly happy, and ready to enjoy any
joke or enter into any talk which went on around him. He
would quote poetry and even read aloud to me while I was
painting. His wife had a most fascinating and caressing
manner, and was full of clever talk and originality. She
took to me at once, and said it was delightful to meet any
one who found pearls in every ugly oyster.

Her son Hardinge, with whom she lived, was most excellent,
and had made himself liked and respected by all his neigh-
bours. He spoke Tamil well. Just at that time he was much
away, as the cholera had broken out and he had to go about
taking precautionary measures against it, working very hard
in very unhealthy localities, to the horror of his mother,
who did not hide her feelings about it, quite the contrary;
she was always in a fidget about something. Their house
stood on a small hill, jutting out into the great river which
ran into the sea a quarter of a mile below the house. It was
surrounded by cocoa-nuts, casuarinas, mangoes, and bread-
fruit trees ; tame rabbits, squirrels, and mainah-birds ran in
and out without the slightest fear, while a beautiful tame
stag guarded the entrance; monkeys with gray whiskers,
and all sorts of fowls, were outside.

vin Ceylon and Home 315

The walls of the rooms were covered with magnificent
photographs; others were tumbling about the tables, chairs,
and floors, with quantities of damp books, all untidy and
picturesque; the lady herself with a lace veil on her head
and flowing draperies. Her oddities were most refreshing,
after the "don't care" people I usually meet in tropical
countries. She made up her mind at once she would photo-
graph me, and for three days she kept herself in a fever of
excitement about it, but the results have not been approved
of at home since. She dressed me up in flowing draperies
of cashmere wool, let down my hair, and made me stand with
spiky cocoa-nut branches running into my head, the noonday
sun's rays dodging my eyes between the leaves as the slight
breeze moved them, and told me to look perfectly natural
(with a thermometer standing at 96°) ! Then she tried me
with a background of breadfruit leaves and fruit, nailed
flat against a window shutter, and told them 'to look natural,
but both failed; and though she wasted twelve plates, and
an enormous amount of trouble, it was all in vain, she could
only get a perfectly uninteresting and commonplace person
on her glasses, which refused to flatter.

She also made some studies of natives while I was there,
and took such a fancy to the back of one of them (which she
said was absolutely superb) that she insisted on her son
retaining him as her gardener, though she had no garden
and he did not know even the meaning of the word. As she
could not flatter me by machinery, she did so by letter to
one of her sisters, and read me a description of myself which
might serve as an elegy when the subject has been put under
the ground and out of the way of blushing. People often
talk to me of the quickness with which young girls make
friendships, but I never heard of any so quickly made as
this with Mrs. Cameron ; and when I admired a wonderful
grass-green shawl on her shoulders, she said, " Yes, that would
just suit you," took a pair of scissors, cut it in half from

316 Recollections of a Happy Life CHAP.

corner to corner, and gave one half to me (which I have on
at this moment). She had brought out a treasure of a maid
called "little E," who made herself quite happy, and helped
her mistress unselfishly and devotedly.

While I was at Kalutara I saw the first live snake I had
seen in Ceylon. I left my sketching chair under the trees
when I went in to breakfast one morning, and on my return
saw a beautiful bright-green thing on the back of it waving
in the wind. My spectacles not being on, I thought some
one had put down some new grass or plant for me, and put
out my hand to take it, when it darted off and was lost, and
" I did not remain ! " It was a riband -snake from the
branches of the trees, said to be poisonous. Since that
day I have always worn spectacles, and have seen no more
live snakes.

I left Kalutara in the midnight of the 21st of January
1877, the whole family, including little E, going down the hill
to the Judge's house with me to wait till the coach came.
I had tried in vain to find some means of going by day over
that beautiful high-road to Galle, but could not even get a
bullock-cart, so was packed into the public conveyance with
four natives and lots of bundles. They all crammed themselves
into the least possible room, and the sea and palms were so
beautiful that I almost think the enjoyment balanced the
discomforts. After a day's rest at Galle I went on board the
Scindh, a splendid French steamer, on the 24th, which brought
me to Aden by the last day of the month, and to Naples on
the llth of February. When I first went on board, my old
friend Mrs. 'Arris pursued me : "Miss Gordon Gumming, I
believe," said a tall Anglo-Indian, taking off his hat, and it
took some argument to persuade him I was not that famous
traveller.

It was all summer as far as Aden, but the morning before
reaching that place a sudden wave rushed in at the port-
windows of the saloon as we were sitting at breakfast, and

viii Ceylon and Home 3 1 7

before they could be closed another wave followed it. We all
mounted on the seats to get our feet out of the water. It was
a most absurd scene, with three inches of water over the floor
draining into all the side-cabins, and soaking all the luggage
which happened to be on the floors. These waves were said
to be the remnant of a recent storm, and no more came, but
it was bitterly cold in the Red Sea. I never dared to leave
the cabin and its stove ; but the French officers organised
" regular marches round " three times a day, with the children
and a band in regular tramp, to keep up the circulation, and
had all sorts of active games — puss in the corner, blind man's
buff, and dancing, in which all the French joined, while the
English looked on. The poor piano was also much tortured.
One old Dutchman went on "trying" things for hours, while—,
another " tried " the violoncello most excruciatingly. It is
strange how "a little music" is thought charming in a man,
and how much a poor woman is required to do before she is
even bearable. The party was not particularly interesting on
board, but we had a large proportion of English gentlemen and
ladies, and after all they are the most agreeable people one
could meet in a ship. I seldom went on deck, but when I
did I had all sorts of comfortable chairs pushed to me, shawls
heaped on me, and other kind little attentions, and met with
small unselfishnesses I did not find amongst other nations.

A good-natured young red-haired officer sat opposite me at
dinner, with a pretty little sister-in-law sent home with two
small babies, to save her life. She was a mere child herself,
only twenty ; and when she was ill, it was grand to see the
young fellow cut up the children's food and carry it on deck.
I only hoped they liked pepper, for he used to empty the
castor over the plates. We had one horrid example of a
Becky Sharpe — a pretty woman in a blue satin dressing-gown,
who used to hang up her poor child in a hammock in the
passage half a mile from her cabin at night, with scarcely any
covering over it. The poor little beauty was too frozen even

318 Recollections of a Happy Life CHAP.

to cry, and would certainly have died if a kind sailor on guard
had not taken it to his own berth. The child was utterly
neglected ; such a lovely little creature, with golden hair and
blue eyes, looking as if they saw right through this mortal
world and out at the other side on things we know not of.
Every creature in the ship petted it, except its father and
mother. One evening I found it on one of the farthest tables
in the saloon, all alone, to be out of the way, the silent tears
running down its face from positive fear, for the ship was
rolling and it had nothing to hold on by.

The good-natured Dutch mothers said its mother was not
a woman but a devil ! How ugly they were ! I had not
noticed it so much when living quite amongst them, but in
that ship, among the English, French, and Italians, one saw
it more ; and they still practised their slipslop kind of dress,
only putting on more slipslops one over the other, as the
climate got cooler, till they looked like barrels.

The Anglo-Indians as a rule were innocent of foreign
languages. I heard two of them grumbling over the wine
carte : " So odd they put down neither Claret, nor Bordeaux,
nor Burgundy ! Garqong ! avez vous Burgundy ? Macon ? no ;
I don't want any of those second-class wines, I want good pure
Burgundy." They took an amazing quantity of stimulating
drinks, and mixed champagne with porter, ale, claret, etc.,
both men and women, in a way which proved them to have
wonderful constitutions left, to survive it, in spite of the much-
blamed climate. The children were great fun. I heard a
little boy telling a group of others his discoveries at the other
end of the ship : " Then I saw a mamma poodle dog, a papa
poodle dog, and their whole family of poodle dogs ; and there
was also a boy poodle, but the boy was very drunk." — " How
did you know he was drunk 1 " — " Because whenever he was
told to stand up or beg, he always tumbled down again."

The colours about Suez were more lovely than ever ; every
tint was pure, yet all harmonious, and all very faint, a mother-

VIII

Ceylon and Home 319

of-pearl shell the only thing like them; I wondered every
time I passed why great artists did not go to paint there.
Brett could do it as well as any one if he would. The wake
of the ship, with the colours deepening as it came near out
of the fairy-like distance, and a long perspective of sea-gulls
following; the near ones were whiter than the white clouds, with
bright green reflections on their lower side from the green sea
below. The canal itself has an odd picturesqueness ; some-
times it is a large ditch, then widening out into a broad lake,
with the same delicate and pure colouring.

We arrived at Naples on the llth of February. I had a
twenty-franc piece and one or two Ceylon notes left in my
pocket. It was Sunday, and I knew no bank would be open.
The Carnival was going on, and tempted me to go and see it
at Eome, rather than stay in Naples among strangers ; so I
asked the stewards if they would change my Ceylon notes —
" Pardon, madame, but we do not take that money here."
Then I asked them most humbly if they would accept a present
of one as their fee — " Yes, madame, with many thanks "
(showing the difference between taking and giving !) One of
my fellow-travellers changed my only remaining one, as he
was going back in a couple of months. I landed through all
the noise and ragamuffins, and drove to the railway station,
where I had to wait four hours for the train, having telegraphed
to my old friend, Miss Raincock, to expect me, and to get me
a room in Rome. I bought a time-list, and made up my mind
I could not afford to go first-class or to have any luncheon.
The Jew boy at the bookstall helped me, telling me my money
would go further if I changed it into paper, which the railways
were obliged to take. He went with me across the street, saw
I got the right exchange, and said I gained two francs in the
transaction; then made me go and put my luggage in the
baggage-room and get a ticket for it, as things were not safe
in the lobbies there : he gave me to understand that the
railway porters in Naples were all thieves.

320 Recollections of a Happy Life CHAP.

A nice Englishwoman who had an hotel near Naples came
and talked to me, made me go and have a cup of coffee and
put a glass of brandy in it before I started, when I found after
all I could go first-class. It was very cold, and I was glad of
the comfortable carriage and foot-warmer. The sunset was
lovely over the beautiful Italian landscape. A pair of young
Italians were kind to me, and insisted on my sharing their
capital supper-basket ; and I felt quite rested, and so delighted
to see my old friend at the station in the same funny old
bonnet I had last seen her in, and the same dear old face
under it. She had found a nice room for me near her own
quarters. Although the cold was intense, I could not resist
wandering through the glorious galleries of the Vatican, with
their marble floors and thorough-draughts. We went to see
the poor horses goaded on through the Corso, and all the
trumpery show and masquerading, and I wondered how
reasonable men and women could make such fools of them-
selves. Rome was becoming more and more unattractive to
me ; the outside alone was glorious. That wide Campagna,
with its broken aqueducts and distant views of mountains and
city, with the domes golden in the sunset or sunrise, the views
from the Pincio, with the fine foliage in the foreground, are
still lovely ; but its shops, palaces, dry old ruins, and con-
ventional pictures, both old and new, attract me very little.

After three days' freezing, I went on for two days' delicious
sunshine in General MacMurdo's lovely garden at Alassio,
then to see Mr. Lear at San Remo with his cosmopolitan
gallery of sketches, my brother-in-law, Sir J. K. S., and my
niece at Cannes. He has always been a most kind friend to
me, and had written to me regularly every month all the
time I was away. It grieved me to see how suffering he was.
I stayed three days with him, and never saw him again, as
he only returned to die a few months afterwards. I had
promised Mrs. Cameron to convey a large china tea-pot in
a straw cover to her sister, Lady Somers, at Cannes. It had

vin Ceylon and Home 321

been no little trouble to me, all the custom-house people
persisting it was a barrel of spirits ! and when at last it was
opened, I found to my horror the old lady had filled it full
of Ceylon tea, which might have caused even more trouble
if discovered by the officials. But it gained me the pleasure
of seeing one of the most beautiful women who ever lived,
and a beautiful face, like a beautiful flower, never fades from
the memory. It is a pleasure for ever.

I went straight through from Cannes to London in thirty-
six hours, arriving at midnight on the 25th of February 1877.
After which I enjoyed six months with my friends in London
and in the country, the chief event being a visit the Emperor
of Brazil paid to my flat at eleven o'clock on the 20th of June,
when he looked at all my curiosities and paintings, and told
me about my different friends in his country, forgetting
nobody that he thought I was interested in, with his marvel-
lous memory. (He took me, between two visits, to a prison^
and a museum !) Another event was, that same Kensington
Museum sending The M'Leod and Mr. Thompson to look at
my different paintings, asking me to lend them for exhibition
in one of their galleries. Of course I was only too happy
that they thought them worth the trouble of framing and
glazing. I was still more flattered when I heard afterwards
that in the cab on the way to my flat, Mr. T. had said to
the Laird, "We must get out of this civilly somehow. I
know what all these amateur things always are ! " but in the
cab going back, he said, " We must have those things at any
price."

I employed the last few weeks of my stay in England in
making a catalogue as well as I could of the 500 studies I
lent them, putting in as much general information about the
plants as I had time to collect, as I found people in general
wofully ignorant of natural history, nine out of ten of the
people to whom I showed my drawings thinking that cocoa
was made from the cocoa-nut.

VOL. I Y

CHAPTER IX

INDIA
1877-79

I LEFT Southampton once more by the Tagus on the 10th of
September 1877, touched for a few days each at Lisbon,
Gibraltar, and Malta, and landed at Galle, in beautiful Ceylon,
on the 15th of November, took my passage to Tuticorin by
the next steamer, and spent some of the intervening days in
visiting old friends in the island.

Ceylon looked even more lovely than it did the year before.
The cocoa-nuts, with their endless variety of curves, were always
a marvel to me, how they kept their balance, with their heavy
heads and slender trunks leaning over the golden sand, and
within a few yards of the pure clear sea waves. The moon
shone gloriously, silvering all the bananas and palm-trees, and
the phosphorus glittered on the sea.

I took a carriage from Pantura and drove ten miles to
Kalutara. The road was a series of beautiful pictures all the
-way. I found Mrs. Cameron much as I left her, the old man
even younger and happier ; and I had the greatest difficulty
in escaping without the other half of that green shawl, its
enthusiastic owner running down a short cut to overtake
my carriage and fling it at me again, but she missed her
mark. Poor thing ! her life is over now. I wonder who
wears that bit of green cashmere, and if it ever will meet my
half again.

I went to Peredeniya the next day, and up to the Botanic

70° East of Greenwich.

80°

Startfbrctis Geog^Estabt

London: MeLcmillazi & Co.

CHAP. IX

India 323

Garden to see my old friend the Director. I had a long
stroll with the dear old man, who looked much aged, and so
delicate that a touch might have knocked him down. The
next morning I started before daylight to catch my steamer,
but the heavy rains had broken down the roads, loosening
great rocks which blocked the passage entirely. I had good
friends who stuck by me all day. We met the Chief Justice,
who shared the contents of a capital luncheon -basket with
us, or we should have been starved, for there were no
provisions on the sierra. We did not reach Colombo till
5 P.M., when I found my steamer had left hours before, so
I had another week to wait on the island.

At last I embarked and had a good voyage to Tuticorin, in
an excellent ship with pleasant passengers. There were 500
coolies packed at the other end of the boat, returning to their
homes, having acquired enough fortune by their labour to buy
an umbrella and a woollen plaid apiece, and to pay their
journey to see their friends, after which they would probably
come back to earn more money. They were graceful figures
of a beautiful dark bronze colour, very shiny, and loaded
with bangles on arms and legs. They seemed always to live
and to laugh on nothing.

The captain did not half like letting me risk the six-miles'
row over the sand-breakers in a loaded boat, but at last we
started and had a good sea. We were two hours and a half
landing, but got in dry, then had to scramble for rooms at the
rest-house as the train had gone. Friends were kind to me
as usual, and the next morning they started me with a basket
of provisions in the train for Madura.

The first part of my Indian journey was over white sand
covered with palmyra- and fan-palms, and cacti ; then came
cotton, quantities of millet, Indian corn, gram, and other
grains. The richest crops were just ripening, and ought to be
the best cure for famine. But I also saw many human wrecks,
all skin and bone, quite enough to teach one what starving

324 Recollections of a Happy Life CHAP.

looked like. The stations were crammed with coolies,
beautifully picturesque figures, loaded with bangles : some of
these were as big as curling-hoops.

Mr. Thompson met me at the Madura station, and took me
home to his comfortable bungalow.

The next day I was quite dumbfounded by the strangeness
of the old Temple of Madura. It was full of darkness and un-
canniness, with monkeys, elephants, bulls and cows, parrots, and
every kind of strange person inside it. The god and goddess
lived in dark central stalls to which no unbeliever is allowed
entrance; but two small black elephants with illuminated
faces, painted fresh in red and white every morning, wearing
wreaths of flowers round their necks, were admitted into that
"holy of holies," with a youth riding on the head of each, and
carrying a silver vase of water. The dignity of that proceeding
was tremendous. The elephants had attendants with tom-toms,
great fans, and feather-flappers, to keep them cool and free
from flies. At a particular spot near the centre the two
separated and went off in different directions, one to the god,
the other to the goddess, and were soon lost in the darkness.
Each of the great beasts carried a heavy chain in its trunk, by
which it was afterwards fastened up. They performed all
sorts of tricks, refusing to pick up coppers ; silver, though it
were only a tiny threepenny-bit, they always handed over to
the attendant priests, a very ill-looking race.

In these temples there is an endless variety of courts and
columns, more grotesque than beautiful, with dragons, griffins,
gods and goddesses, larger than life. In the entrance are
money-changers, and all sorts of merchandise, a gorgeous
variety of bright -coloured cloths with gold borders, which
both men and women wrap round them like a petticoat all
over India : these are made at Madura. In one part of the
temple is a hall of a thousand pillars, all different. The judge
took me to see all the temple jewels, which, if sold, might
have helped to stop the famine in South India. The sapphires

ix India 325

were as big as nutmegs, and there were other grand stones in
abundance. One elephant-cloth was gorgeous, all embroidered
with seed-pearls, gold, and silver. The priests offered us a
dance, and the dancing -girls began wriggling to their wild
music, seeming just the right things for the place; but my
friends did not approve of them, and we did not stop.

I made a sketch of one of the small inner temples, in which
the god and goddess were married every year. When we
came away, wreaths of sweet trumpet-flowers were put round
our necks, and a lime to smell in our hands (a very
necessary luxury in such a locality). Dancing- women also
came and saluted us. They attitudinised backwards and for-
wards slowly, making angular movements of hand and arm,
and muttering compliments, while a band of musicians ac-
companied their movements with drum, fife, and voice, one
old man jerking his head backward with every yell in a way
that made one expect to see it roll off every moment.

I painted a sunset view of the grand tank outside the town,
with its island-temple and palm-trees, grand old banyan-trees
and other temples on its edge. The English people drive
round and round it every evening, and make that drive their
chief gossiping spot.

Starvation, floods, and fever were all round. The railway
was washed away in nine places, and I could not have left
it even if I had wished. The gardens were all flooded, the
great river rising, tanks breaking on all sides. The pandanus
pines alone seemed to enjoy it, being buried in water up to
tops of their odd stilted roots. Every one was taking opium,
so I followed the fashion, prevention being better than cure.
The punkahs were kept going day and night, to blow away"
the mosquitoes ; and if the punkah-pullers went to sleep, Anglo-
Indians had squirts by their bedsides, to squirt water at them
through the Venetian shutters. The natives had grown so
much into the habit of expecting this, that they used to hold
umbrellas over their heads (made of matting). They got two

326 Recollections of a Happy Life CHAP.

rupees a month for half a night's work. I saw some terrible
remains of starvation about the streets. The relief-camp was
on the other side of the river. It was so flooded that people
could not cross without difficulty, and were constantly washed
away and drowned, and I have seen them climb up the stone
posts put to mark the ferry, and cling on to them for hours,
till an elephant was sent to bring them on shore.

The squirrels in the roof were a great amusement to me.
I watched one of those tiny creatures playing close to me
with its child. At last the young one got on its mother's back,
was carried right up to the roof, and along the rafters to the
corner where the nest was, when a whole tribe of little creatures
with ridiculous tails came out to meet it, with much chattering.
Then the old one came down to watch me again. They were
very tame, and not longer than one's middle finger, with tails
rather longer than themselves, and the most intelligent ears.

The rain came on again worse than ever. It was impossible
to get away and dangerous to stay. The river was overflowing,
and we were only a couple of yards above it, tanks bursting
on all sides. No road out of Madura was practicable for more
than a mile : all were lost in the floods.

At last I got away in a special carriage ordered for the
judge and his wife, and we reached Dindigal at sunset, where
Mr. M. met me, and drove me to his charming wife and home.
They pressed me to stay and make an excursion to the Palani
Hills, 8000 feet above them, which were most lovely ; but I
could not linger, and at five o'clock I was in a long chair on
the shoulders of four coolies, with eight more to relieve them,
r and two peons to drive them on. They carried me splendidly
along the broken railroad, changing one by one under the
bamboo-poles without stopping, and setting me down to walk
[ over the gaps and planks where the road was yet unmended.
At last we reached some waggons, full of coolies, which took
me to the train, and so into Trichinopoli, where Colonel F.
met me and drove me out to his home at the camp. The

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India 327

river here was broader than the Thames, but so shallow that
people were walking through it in all directions, instead of
over the noble bridge. The road beyond the bridge was
arched over by the interlaced branches of banyan-trees, with
their hanging roots tied up in knots to get them out of the
way of the passengers' heads. The streets seemed very gay,
after poor fever-stricken Madura.

On the 24th of December 1877 I reached Tanjore by the
earliest train, asked a policeman I saw to show me the way
to the Doctor's, and walked under his porch about nine o'clock,
to his great surprise, as he was sitting among his books deep
in work, having expected me by a later train. Living with
him was like living with a live dictionary, and was a delightful
change. He had another clever man spending his Christmasx
holidays with him, Dr. N., who had written a book about
Indian snakes, and the two talked deliciously together. I
had a delightful upper room full of windows, looking over
some miles of country. My table was loaded with different
valuable botanical books (including MSS.) An old ayah sat
on the floor in a corner to wait on me and watch me, much to
my discomfort, but as the doctor said it was absolutely neces-
sary for her to do so, I submitted. He had all sorts of sacred
Hindu plants ready for me to paint (he having undertaken to
write their history at the same time, and to publish it some
day with my illustrations). He made me feel quite at home,
and in no hurry. He and his friend showed me the splendid
temple, lingering over all its rare bits of carving and inscrip-
tions till I felt at home there too. I know no building in its
way nobler than that temple of Tanjore. The colour of its
sandstone is particularly beautiful; its whole history is in-
scribed round the basement in characters as sharply cut as if
they were done yesterday. I did one large painting of the
outside, driving every afternoon to the point of view I had
chosen, where the Princess of Tanjore had ordered a small
tent to be put up for me, and a guard of honour to attend me !

328 Recollections of a Happy Life CHAP.

It was comical, but most luxurious. After the men had saluted
me, they retired to a distance, and did not worry me. Dr.
Burnell used to bring his papers and work there also when
he had time ; he worked day and night, never resting.

One afternoon we went by invitation to the Palace, in our
best clothes. We drove in to the court through the gates, and
were saluted by six elephants, all throwing up their trunks
and roaring at us, much to the disgust of our big English
horses, who had an especial dislike to them and to their ways.
A flourish of drums and trumpets also greeted us, and his
Excellency, the husband of the Princess, came down to meet
us. He gave a hand to each, and led us under three scarlet
umbrellas into a large hall, and up to the centre of it, over
gorgeous carpets, till we reached a screen of silk interwoven
with gold thread, chairs placed in a semicircle in front of it.
Here I was delivered over to Miss Wolff, her Highness's
English teacher, and led behind the mysterious curtain,
where I found the Princess seated. After giving me her
hand, she stooped down, lifted the curtain a little, and put
out her hand for Dr. Burnell to take, who said such pretty
things to her, that she kept her attention fixed nearly all the
time on his talk with her husband on the other side of the
curtain, thereby saving me the trouble of amusing her. She
was a very pretty woman of perhaps thirty, with clear olive
skin. Her head and limbs, nose and all, were loaded with
ornaments, her toes all covered with rings and enormous
anklets. Her drapery was of silver and gold embroidery, and
she had a very sweet smile and voice. Behind her was a
square frame like a shower-bath, covered with gold kincob,
under which she walked when in public ; but, except on that
one expedition to Delhi, she had never left home. She
showed me the medal and ring given by the Queen-Empress.

I felt a real pity for the poor secluded woman. She showed
me photographs of all our Royal family, and a full-sized por-
trait in oils of herself, done by a native artist, not from herself.

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India 329

but from one of her little nieces who was supposed to be like
her. The jewels and dress alone were taken from the real
thing. I was asked the rather embarrassing question : " Was
it not a good likeness ? " She gave me a photograph of her-
self, with her autograph ; and when I asked how it was that
a photographer was allowed to look at her or to do it, I was
told he had his head in a bag, and was supposed not to be
able to see her ! The husband sat at the corner of his side of
the curtain, and looked round it at the Princess and myself,
talking intelligently in good English to me, while Dr. Burnell
talked in Tamil through the curtain to the poor woman. The
little nieces were very pretty, with shining bronze skins, and
draperies of green and red shot with pure gold. One of them
has since married the Maharajah of Baroda, and their wedding-
festivities lasted forty days. When we took leave, garlands of
flowers were hung on our necks and wrists, we were sprinkled
with rose-water, then led back by the great man to the carriage,
in the same way we had come, looking like prize beasts, the
little doctor with his thin worn face and long hair quite
smothered by his flowers, real pink oleander, while I had a
still more absurd artificial wreath covered with birds cut out
in pith.

The great man between us was gorgeous, though his
beard looked as if it had been cut by himself in the dark
with a blunt pair of scissors. Drums and trumpets and
elephants all saluted us again, and a highly decorated camel
performed some feats in our honour as we drove off. The
next day the Princess sent us two great trays of sweet-
meats and requested to have my photograph and address in
England.

The real hot weather came, and to me was enjoyable. I
was very sorry to leave Tanjore and its good talk, such as
I was little likely to meet for months to come. The F.'s put
me up most kindly again, and the next morning the Colonel
took me to Seringham, the largest temple I ever saw : a perfect

330 Recollections of a Happy Life CHAP.

city in itself, but very dirty and rubbishy. The view from
the roof was the most curious part of it, and gave one the
best idea of its great size. The terminalia trees produced a
strange effect, with their rectangular branches and deep-red
leaves. We dined with the Judge that night, who said I
must also see the Sira Temple near Seringham ; he would send
a peon to show me the way. So I went, and was glad, for in
many ways it was more interesting and picturesque than the
other.

I reached Erode at sunrise the next morning, getting into
a carriage full of sleeping people at five. It was all dark, and
no lantern, all a muddle, but one of the men struck lucifer
matches one after the other, till I had cleared a corner to sit
in, and I watched the gradual coming of daylight. At noon-
day I reached Matapolium, and after breakfast was packed
into a small open carriage, with two ponies to drag it, not
much bigger than cats. They went at full gallop all the
way to the hole in the wood where the "Tongas" were
kept. Into one of these I was transferred, and hoisted on the
shoulders of six natives, who carried me up the hill beautifully,
but fought continually among themselves, and at last got so
much in earnest that they set me down on a narrow shelf
under the most magnificent bank of hanging ferns and
creepers, and after abusing one another till their eyes
seemed starting out of their heads, they went "to have it
out," rolling over one another on the ground, and trying to
throw each other over the precipice. One old man alone kept
clear of the row, and signed to me to be quiet also ; so we
waited till the party of savages had fought enough, when
they came back bleeding, picked me up again, and continued
to jog on, and when they saw the end of their journey near,
they got into the highest good-humour, and set up a monoton-
ous chant, snatching flowers from the banks and flinging them
on to my knees. Such flowers ! Verbenas, ipomoeas, scarlet
rhododendrons ! They were delighted to get their extra

IX

India 33 1

rupee, and deserved it, for they had taken good care of me,
and the fighting was their own affair : if it amused them, it
did me no harm.

Grey's hotel at Kunur consisted of a number of small
bungalows, dotted about on lovely terraces and gardens, round
the central boarding-house, where the master and mistress
lived, and had their chief kitchens. I had a most luxurious
little house all to myself; it was furnished with carpets,
fireplaces, four- post bedsteads, and every kind of English
luxury and absurdity. An old woman kept the fire going of
an evening, and washed my clothes ; and a grand man in a
turban brought down four great covered dishes twice a day,
with tea at seven and three. I interviewed the pompous old
landlord, and went round his garden with the nice landlady.
They had a heliotrope hedge six feet high, with a perfect
mass of sweet flowers on it. The whole hillside was one
sweet garden. The quiet was most delicious in my little house
covered with lovely creepers, small scarlet and white passion-
flowers, with exquisite tea-roses in abundance, and every other
sweet flower, real wild rhododendron-trees all round. Every
hill was tinged with red blossoms ; they were scraggy, shabby
trees, not bigger than English apple-trees, the flowers decidedly
poor, with a white eye, but of the deepest red. I took some
walks through the rain and clouds. Then, as I felt my limbs
and ankles beginning to swell and stiffen, I decided to avoid
rheumatism by coming down again to a warmer climate,
resisting an invitation to go and stay at Utakamund.

A carriage brought me by a longer road, changing horses
three times. The creepers were gorgeous: many kinds of
passion-flower and ipomoea. One of the latter, a large white
variety, with deep -purple tube and centre, was grand. It
grew in great clusters lika coerulea. There was also a miniature
copy of that one, which quite covered the trees it crept over,
often weighing down a great bamboo. But there were no
high forest-trees, as in Brazil or Borneo. A very little more

332 Recollections of a Happy Life CHAP.

rain would have rendered the roads impassable, so that I
was glad I came down when I did. Great rocks and landslips
narrowed it in many places, and the constant traffic of the
bullock-carts ploughed it up. Those great beasts had their
horns painted blue, green, yellow, and red, never a pair alike.
The lower I got the more beautiful was the jungle, but also
the more feverish, so I took the first train on to Podanur
Junction, and camped for the night in the ladies' waiting-
room, then went on again westward, along the banks of a
sandy river-bed, often full of beasts and of people enjoying
the cool water, while on the other side were the Nilgherry
hills piled one over the other.

At Beypur I found a large room over the station, a hundred
yards from the sea, with a garden between me and it. Also
a servant engaged for me by a friend of Dr. Burnell, who had
come from Cochin on purpose to attend on me. I enjoyed
being at Beypur close to the sea, with no dirty town. I could
walk on the rocks and sands, watching the shrimps, crabs,
and other queer creatures in their own home-circles. I found
an old Scotchman, who gossiped on the little pier as he would
have done at home, and was delighted to find a new listener.
I made a long sketch of the river and distant mountains,
with endless cocoa-nuts in the middle distance, ferry-boats,
and picturesque people. It was very pleasant sitting on the
clean sand, but it was hot. The jack -crows were the chief
objection to my quarters at Beypur. They flew in at the
window and stole every small thing they saw ; I caught one
just hopping off with a tube of my precious cobalt one
day, and only came into the room just in time to make him
drop it.

I had been waiting some days for the steamer, but suddenly
determined, from what I was told, to go to Cochin by back-
water instead; so went by rail to Shoranur, then took two
bullock-carts, with noble sleek beasts in each, put my man
Alex, and the trunks in one, myself in the other on a clean

IX

India 333

mat and pillows. The driver sat on the pole, pinching the
bullock's back and tail with his fingers, first one, then the
other, then both at once, and da capo. At dark I arrived at
Trichur, where we found the only two big boats were out,
so I decided to sleep at the travellers' bungalow, and to take
a small one in the morning. I made myself some good tea
in my machine, and started before daylight in a canoe, with
a fair breeze to fill the sail, which was made of six mats
sewn together. The canoe was about a yard wide, and had
a seat between the two roofs of matting, on which it was
too sunny to sit. But I kept near it, so as to see well out.
Alex, was under the other roof, and two men and a boy
made the whole crew. It was most enjoyable. Sometimes
we were in a big lake, so shallow that people and storks
paddled about amongst the red and white floating nymphseas,
sometimes in narrow canals, where tall cocoa-nuts rested
their heavy heads against one another from the opposite
banks, with little huts under them full of amphibious, jolly-
looking mortals, who passed half their lives in the water
collecting a kind of bivalve shell-fish, squatting in the shallow
streams and scraping them up in their fingers, to be deposited
in floating baskets by their sides. They made curry of the
fish, and the shells were made into lime.

We were continually passing strange birds perching on
tree-stumps, or fishing among the flooded rice -beds. They
were so tame that some of the long-legged species used to
march along beside the boat as if they liked company. We
also passed lovely lilies, floating or standing just out of the
water, both pink and white. While the sunset was still
gorgeous, Alex, wanted to shut the boat up, and to put a
mat over the central opening between the two roofs. I
resisted, and insisted in keeping the light and air, for there
was also a glorious moon rising. After that my treasure of
a servant went raving mad, sobbing, screaming, throwing his
arms about like a maniac, finally he threw himself and the

334 Recollections of a Happy Life CHAP.

roof over him into the water, which quieted him for a few
moments. Then he began again : "0 God, God, Jesus,
Maria, save me ! save me ! O my wicked soul, God, God ! "
etc. Always the same cries, louder and louder, and in English.
I scolded him well, told him he was either mad or drunk,
piled my two trunks on the top of the seat in the middle of
the boat as a barricade, and went to the farthest end of my
roof, leaving him scowling and muttering, "It displeaseth
me that you think me mad or drunk ! " It struck me he
might perhaps avenge the insult to his feelings, so I kept my
candle-box close to my hand, and got as near the steersman
as I could, and did not sleep. He raved all night, but at
daybreak we arrived in Cochin, and he was sober again,
carried my things into the rest-house and left them there.

Cochin was full of Christians and beggars. I went out
for a stroll past the old church and Frank settlements and
through the Jews' quarter, saw the synagogue which Dr.
Burnell said was built in the seventh century, Cochin having
been a port to which the old Egyptians used to traffic ; later
still King Solomon himself sent his ships there.

I started at four in the afternoon in a big cabin boat,
with thirteen men and a tame old Moslem as a servant,
instead of poor Alex., whose infirmities were well known in
Cochin. My crew made a frightful noise all night, singing
and rowing furiously. We passed over huge inland seas,
rivers, and narrow canals again, and reached Quilon about
twelve the next day. I decided to rest the night there in
the bungalow, which is a mile from the river, and deliciously
airy, surrounded by cashew and mango trees. The former
is quite the weed of the country, and the air was sweet with
the scent of its abundant flowers. It was perfectly quiet
up there too, though my boatmen did come up and camp
round me. They only sang when their oars were going,
and we walked back to the boat at four in the morning,
through the bright moonlight. Thence on to Nevereya,

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India 335

where we left the boat and crossed the boundary in a bullock-
cart. We went on in another canoe, hollowed out of one
long tree, for twelve hours more, stopping to breakfast at a
cocoa-nut farm within a stone's throw of the salt sea on one
hand, and the backwater canal on the other.

Trivandrum is a model little capital, buried among tall
trees. I stayed there with Dr. Houston, who got me rare I
plants, and told the men where to take me to see the prettiest j
views and to sketch. The little toy houses were something
between Tyrolese and Arab, with tiny double-arched windows
and slender marble shafts, so small that one could not get
one's head through them. I met the Maharajah taking his
walk one day. He shook his hand at me, and said, " I hope
you are quite well." He always said that to all Europeans.
There was a fine old temple, and a large holy tank. Twenty
Europeans lived in Trivandrum, who came together on certain
days when the band played in the gardens, to cut one another
systematically, and to talk scandal.

I returned to Cochin very much done up, and hoped for
a few days' rest, but heard that the steamer for Bombay
would be in that afternoon, so had to be ready, and got
well over the bar at the mouth of the harbour, and on board
the very nicest little steamer I was ever in, the Kliandala of
the British India Line. It had but one objection to its
comfort — the enormous armies of small red ants which swarmed
in it. Bed, food, hair, portmanteaux, every place was full of
them. Cans and bottles all had muslin tops tied on them,
through which one had to pour the water. Those ingenious ~
little creatures had a particular liking for a sponge; no
matter how I hung mine, they were sure to find it out, and
a long red living line was drawn up the wall or ceiling, and
over the string into the sponge, which became alive with
them, and it took me some time to weed them all out before
I dare use it, for the tiny creatures stung if crushed or
hurt.

336 Recollections of a Happy Life CHAP.

The entrance to Bombay is very striking, with its numerous
islands and abundant shipping. We got there at daylight.
I was sorry to see the number of hideous factory chimneys
and coal smoke, which are doing their worst to make Bombay
as ugly as Liverpool. But the old town is most picturesque,
with high houses and narrow streets full of life and colour,
dirt and untidiness. Curiosities from the whole world are
collected in those streets. I was not allowed to stay at the
hotel. Sir Eichard Temple's secretary, Major R, sent to ask
me to move at once to Government House; then when I
begged to be excused till the next day, on account of the ball
that night, for which I had no proper dress, he sent down his
brougham and ordered me to return at once; so resistance
was of no use, I went as desired, and had a delightful set of
rooms given me, opening on to the rocks, some hundred feet
over the sea, at the extreme end of Malabar Point, with far
sea- views on three sides of me, and delicious air. The ball-
room and other state-rooms stood by themselves, surrounded
by a wide verandah and garden, with bungalows for guests,
and for the suite on the other side, each building detached
from its neighbours.

That night the verandah and garden were illuminated with
Japanese lanterns, the supper being under an open tent out-
side, gorgeous carpets laid down everywhere. There were
some four hundred people gorgeously dressed, a few black-
coated men amongst them, some Parsis with their wives, and
other native men looking like fish out of water under the
glittering chandeliers, mixed up with red coats and the low
dresses of the English ladies. (My old turned black silk was
perhaps still more incongruous.) The Governor, however,
walked me about round and round all the rooms and gardens,
as if I were a grandee, telling me about every one, and all their
histories and belongings, with as much minuteness as any
gossipy old lady. He had only just returned from a two
months' famine tour, and was to start off in two or three days

IX

India 337

on another, but told me to make my headquarters always at
his house, and to go and come as it suited me, while I stayed
in India. He seemed never to rest. Whatever he did he did
with all his might, putting his whole energy into it for the
time being ; but he could no more stretch out time enough for
all than I could (and time has been my constant enemy all
my life). He had untiring strength, and demanded more
from those about him than people with less power of hard
work could bear with impunity.

The sunrise every morning from the rocks behind my room
was beautiful. It used to come up like a round red ball
behind the purple hills and hanging smoke of the city some
five miles off, and the red -coated servant used to bring my
chota hazm or early breakfast out on that rock to me every
morning. Around me were wild peepul-trees, full of berries ;
erythrina- trees, with their red flowers just opening, and wild
cherries. Below all was the sea, and a perfect fleet of boats
with bright sails going off after fish. The first morning Sir
Eichard Temple gave me a walk before breakfast, showed me
all the odd trees, the beautiful stable of horses, and the great
stretch of brown rocks, up which a perpetual stream of women,
came, carrying water-jars on their shoulders, full of salt water
for the roads. Every afternoon the carriage drove to " the
Mole," about six miles off, where every other carriage in
Bombay and all the fashionable people also went, for no parti-
cular purpose but to look at one another. I went once or
twice with Mrs. E. C., but did not find it entertaining. The
Parsi ladies made a great show about all the public places of
Bombay, as they dressed in the very brightest China silks, and
seemed for ever walking about showing off their newly-acquired
liberty with uncovered faces; but they spoiled their beauty
by wearing a tight band just over their eyes like nuns, hiding
all their hair. The rich natives all seemed to delight in
driving about in English carriages drawn by fine horses.

Mrs. C. very kindly found me a servant, a Madras man,

VOL. I Z

338 Recollections of a Happy Life CHAP.

who called himself John. He had a gorgeous turban, bright
black eyes, and most limp long figure. He and I started off
by rail for Neral, after a week of luxurious idleness at
Government House ; and there I mounted a pony and rode
up to Matheran, which, Mr. Lear had written me, was " a
highly Divine plateau." The views were certainly fine, having
strangely shaped rocky hill-tops in the middle distance, with
almost vertical strata of different coloured trap rising some
2200 feet from the great plain and distant sea and islands
about Bombay. The colours were magnificent. The floating
clouds blended the whole into exquisitely rich pictures.
The air up there too was refreshing after that of the hot
capital.

A few bored European soldiers were the only inmates of
the hotel. All were depressed with having nothing to do ; the
monkeys alone seemed busy, and the trees swarmed with
them. They were so tame that they hardly took the trouble
to get out of my way as I rode up the hill, looking upon me
decidedly as an intruder, and thinking me very rude not to go
up the trees and get out of their way, who had the business
of life to attend to, and were collecting nuts and fruit for their
wives and families; and when I saw the depressed loafers
around walking on two legs I did not wonder at the monkeys'
contempt for them.

But a few days were enough at Matheran, and I rode
down, took the rail on to Lanawali over a magnificent
piece of engineering, up the Bhor Ghat, one of the finest
bits of scenery I ever saw. No one going to India should
miss that ascent, though, like myself, he went no farther
than Lanawali, where there is an excellent small hotel on the
top of the pass, on a flat broad valley or filled -up lake, sur-
rounded by mountain -tops, all running into very horizontal
strata, gold, pink, and brown in the sunlight, with shadows of
the purest purple. The plain was covered with golden stubble,
fine trees dotted about, and stacks of rice and corn were built

ix India 339

up on stilts or in the middle of the spreading trees. Flocks
and herds were grazing all about, with picturesque figures of
men and women to look after them.

I had the house to myself, and thoroughly enjoyed it ; but
my chief object in coming there was to visit the Cave of
Karli, and I had asked the station-master at Khandala to send
me a pony. " Pony no got come," the man said, and after
waiting an hour I set off to walk. My man misunderstood
the directions, and did not believe in any one wanting to go to
Karli ; so I walked down nearly to Khandala, then met the
pony coming up at a canter. At last we came to the final
climb over the hard volcanic rocks, and first to a splendid tree
of the Jonesia Asoka, full of orange flowers and delicate young
lilac leaves. The priest of the temple found me one fine
flower growing through a honeycomb full of honey, which had
been built round its stem. Now this was a very curious thing.
Did the buds push their way through the honey and wax, or
was the thing built quickly round them 3 I never satisfied
myself which was the first perfected. The cave itself, more
interesting than beautiful, is accurately described by Mr.
Fergusson, who also gives an engraving of it in his History of
Indian Architecture. While I was sketching outside it a very
sacred man came out, all painted and whitened, and produced
a pot of red paint, which he daubed over several of the carvings,
with a defiant look at me ; I believe as a sort of precaution
against the effects of my evil eye. I took his portrait, and as
he did not take mine I think I had the best of it. He was
dressed in yellow paint and a red mantle. . . .

The steam-launch had been ordered by the Governor him-
self, before he left Bombay, to take me to the Island of
Elephanta, and on my return I spent a day among its strange
old idols and semi -darkness, looking out from it on the
dazzling blue sea and sky, lilac hills, and graceful fan-palms.
Strange that such a dry spot should be so feverish ! But the
poor man who lived near it and acted as guardian, said he was

34-O Recollections of a Happy Life CHAP.

never without fever, and every one who had tried to live
there had suffered in the same way.

On the 26th of February I left Bombay at eight in the
morning. A railway took me up another splendid pass to
Nasik Eoad, where I transferred myself, my luggage, and John
into two low dog -carts, drawn by ponies, with the driver
sitting astride on the pole, his feet clasped under it. At the
end of the pole was a crossbar, which rested against the
ponies' shoulder, over a pad, and was simply kept in its place
by a loop of rope. The little things went at a great pace, and
took about an hour to drag us over seven miles. Sir George
Campbell wanted to make Nasik the capital of India. It is
certainly a most picturesque old town, with steep busy streets
gaudily coloured and carved in wood and stone; the river
banks lined with temples most beautifully ornamented, and
paved with stone, having grand nights of steps, and many
causeways across. It looked like a series of tanks rather than
a river. To the Hindus it was very sacred. Their long series
of temples led to its very source, which was said to be refilled
by the Ganges itself once in every thirteen years, by under-
ground and rather incomprehensible channels. There was a
perpetual fair going on by the river banks, among all the
temples ; crowds of gaily-dressed people were always bathing,
washing, and filling their chatties or water- jars, far too many
i ^tor any comfort in sketching. I was overwhelmed with the
1 amount of subjects to be painted, and could do nothing well.
• The streets were as attractive as the river, particularly the
metal-bazaars, where every one seemed to be trying who could
make most noise. Some of the old chatties of mixed copper
and brass were tempting to buy, but too heavy to carry, and I
resisted the temptation.

We drove out a few miles from Nasik to an isolated round
hill, which had a complete circle of cave-temples round it called
the Chenmar Luna, with three hundred steps leading up to
them. Many were much ornamented and coloured inside, and

IX

India 341

the views over the plain of the Godavery were fine. It was
cold in the night and early morning, and I had to wear gloves
to keep my hands from being chapped and frozen. We had
nine hours of dust and jolting on to Aurungabad, changing
ponies every six miles. I found a nice bungalow there, and,
after a bath, had time to drive round the town before dark.
It belonged to the Nizam. Its people were a wild set, who
seemed rather inclined to mob me when I tried to do some
shopping. My change was given me in cowrie shells. The
great sight was a tomb of King Aurangzib's beautiful daughter
— an imitation of the Taj in white marble, looking very pure
amongst the green trees and flowers which surrounded it.

The next morning we went on to Daulatabad, the famous
Indian fortress. It has 120 feet of sheer perpendicular
precipice all round it, and many subterranean passages,
stairs, and halls, through which one must pass to get to its
top. I saw a tiger-trap outside, which had lately caught its
game, a sick kid being the bait. After leaving that horrible
fortress, we drove on to another ruined city — Eoza, which has
some very beautiful mosques, and tombs of kings, with doors
of silver and gold, and half-precious stones in the inlaid pave-
ments. In one of these tombs, four large earthenware
chatties were hung between each arch, for the doves to build
their nests in. They would have made a pretty study of
white and gray. It was a curious change to come suddenly
among Moslem things and ways again. Just outside the walls
of Eoza was the edge of the high table-top and precipice. The
whole was covered with tombs of all sorts ; one large one had
been fitted up as a mess-bungalow by the officers at Aurunga-
bad. I had leave to stay there for two nights. It was an
octagonal building, with a domed roof, and high arched
recesses : a most delicious room, comfortably furnished, and
supplied with shilling railway novels !

A mile farther down the steep road was Ellora, where I
found twenty-four caves of every age and variety of design,

34 2 Recollections of a Happy Life CHAP.

but all insignificant compared to the great Kylas, which is a
perfect cathedral, standing on the backs of some hundred
elephants, nearly as large as life, all cut out of the solid rock.
I never saw any building so impressive and so strange. The
front of the temple is level with the face of the cliff, which
surrounds it on the three other sides. They seem to have
begun by cutting a deep moat round those three sides, so as to
leave the square block in the centre detached, after which
they excavated the different halls and staircases, covering the
whole with the richest and most fantastic carving. Galleries
are cut in the outer surface of the surrounding cliff, by
which one could get the best views of the huge building at
different levels. It happened to be a Hindu festival while I
was there. People came to the caves from all parts, and
camped outside, which made it still more exciting and pictur-
esque. My attempts at painting were much hindered by the
ants, which seemed to have an especial taste for oil-paints, and
they ate a good deal of me up too on their way to my palette.
I wished I could have had a tent and plenty of time in such an
interesting place, for such buildings could not be sketched in
a hurry. In the plain below were grand tanks, tombs, and
trees, and a kind of fair was going on among them.

At 2 A.M. I was rolling on again, in one of the comfortable
carriages of the G. I. P. Railway, and slept nearly all the way.

The old town of Jabalpur is full of picturesque bits ; one
tank especially, surrounded by lime-trees, white temples, and
palaces. Masses of picturesque boulder-stones are scattered
about in the neighbourhood of the town, with houses and
tombs under and over them. Some seven miles off are the
famous Marble Rocks, so cold and hard, dipping their perpen-
dicular scarps into deep green water, with the most exact
reflections under them. A good bungalow is built on a hill
above — quite an ideal place for an artist to stop at ; and on the
banyan-tree hanging over the house was a group of half-tame
monkeys, who were accustomed to being fed by the people

ix India 343

who made picnics there, and were most impertinent. One of
them nearly ran off with a paint-brush I dropped, but found
me too quick for him, and retreated chattering.

I started at night again for Agra, which I reached on the
morning of the 14th of March. The ground all round the
city was pure dust, — one ate it, breathed it, drank it, slept in
it, — but the place was so glorious that one forgot the dust
entirely. I went that same afternoon to the Taj, and found it
bigger and grander even than I had imagined ; its marble so
pure and polished that no amount of dust could defile it ; the
building is so cleverly raised on its high terrace, half-hidden
by gardens on one side, and washed on the other by the
great river Jumna. The garden was a dream of beauty; the
bougainvillea there far finer than I ever saw it in its native
Brazil. The great lilac masses of colour often ran up into the
cypress-trees, and the dark shade of the latter made the flowers
shine out all the more brightly The petrsea also was dazzling
in its masses of blue. Sugar-palms and cocoa-nuts added their
graceful feathers and fans, relieving the general roundness of
the other trees. The Taj itself was too solid and square a
mass of dazzling white to please me (as a picture), except
when half hidden in this wonderful garden, though on the
river side it was relieved by wings and foundations of red
sandstone. The gates, which are chiefly of that beautiful
material, would in themselves be worth a journey to see, so
graceful and exquisitely finished are they. It was some days-n
before I mounted the terrace and went inside. Like a great I
snow-mountain, I felt I wanted to know it well from a dis-
tance before I dared approach nearer ; but the more I studied
it, the more I appreciated its marvellous detail and general
breadth of design. The interior is most elaborately inlaid
with jasper, serpentine, amethyst, and other half -precious
stones — many of which have been ruthlessly picked out by
barbarians — of different tints. The old palace-rooms in the
Fort were even more lovely in their way ; and I used to go

344 Recollections of a Happy Life CHAP.

there every afternoon, and to the Taj in the morning. Some
of the balconies hanging over the old walls of the fortress
seemed too fine for human beings to live in. I feared to break
them with my weight as I wandered about them, with their
windows of marble lace-work, all so pure.

My friends drove me over to Sikandra, the tomb of Akbar,
a wonderful building with magnificent gates, standing in a
large walled park full of fine trees. The patterns on the
marble tomb at the top of all were exquisite, and I spent a
morning in trying to trace them. The tomb now has nothing
but sky over it. Fergusson said it was intended to have a
marble dome ; the judge said no, only an awning. I think
both : a dome in the centre merely to cover the tomb, and an
awning stretched from it to the side to shelter the pilgrims
who came to visit it. One night I went with Mrs L. to see
the Taj by moonlight. " All the world" was there, with a
band, ices, tea, and scandal. I preferred it by daylight,
with its setting of trees and coloured flowers, and perfect
quiet.

I was not home till one o'clock, and the next morning off
to Sikandra at six ; and after a long day's work on the roof, I
dressed at the bungalow, had a bath, and tea, and drove to
^line at Judge E.'s on my way home. The next day I had a
touch of fever, and went to Fatehpur for three days' change,
to try and cure it. My lodging was a two-storeyed building,
ornamented inside and out with a perfect sampler of marvel-
lous stone embroideries, every panel being of a different
pattern, in red sandstone, and all too perfect to be picturesque.
There were many other exquisite houses and palaces, with
great paved courts between them. Even the beams in the
roof were made of stone; they were fifteen feet long, supported
by deep niches and hanging pomegranates. A lovely marble
mosque and tomb were also on that flat hill-top, with walls and
gates all round, all too perfect, though entirely deserted,
Akbar having left the place and moved his capital to Agra.

IX

India 345

It was a melancholy scene of desolation, without any growing
things to humanise the dry stones. I was too ill to do much
else than doze, and trace a few of the patterns. I began to
hate all architecture, however beautiful, and to long for green
growing things again.

I saw odd things on the road back to Agra : six camels
carrying six haystacks ; camels pulling double-storeyed human
cages on wheels at a trot; and the common cab or ekkeh,
with a high shower-bath awning over the passengers, who sat
on their own heels under it, with a wheel on each side of them,
the driver on the pole between two bullocks, pinching their
backs with his finger-ends continually to keep them going.

But I was very ill, and found it of no use fighting longer
with the dry heat of Agra, so started by the rail at nine at
night for Bareilly. At five in the evening of the next day we
started again, in a great box on wheels, with a board to put
up between the seats to make a bed of, changing horses every
six miles. So we jolted through the darkness, stopping in
the middle of the night to feed. I drank five bottles of soda-
water that night, and still felt thirsty, and wondered I sur-
vived it. But at daylight we were close under the mountains,
and we turned in among them, and stopped at Kanibagh, a
place with large mango-trees all loaded with bloom, and a
running river below, which did one's eyes good to see after
the months of dust. I felt better, and could eat again, and
after a night's rest was carried up the hills in a dandy (by two
bearers at a time, changing places every five minutes), in four
and a half hours, to Naini Tal. In spite of the earliness and
dryness of the season, I saw many beautiful flowers : great
masses of blue plumbago, pink gentian, white and pink
bauhinia, and the judas tree, a perfect mass of pink without
any leaves. Other bushes were covered with small red or
blue flowers, looking like almond or peach blossom. The
hills were marvellously blue, piled one over the other beyond
them. I never saw such abundance of pure colour ; but they

346 Recollections of a Happy Life CHAP.

said in a few days all that blossom would shake off, and I
found it was so. "When I returned a few days after to sketch,
it was already gone.

At the top of the pass, I came suddenly on bazaars and
a bustling native village, then descended to the lovely green
lake, with a road on each side, high hills all round, dotted
with English villas, and a little town at the farther end — all
very unpicturesque. The Anglo -Indian, having apparently
been tired, like myself, with the amount of exquisite buildings
on the plain below, had determined to make those he built
here as prosy and ugly as possible, and had succeeded admir-
ably. I was the second arrival of the season, and had the best
rooms in the hotel, on the ground-floor, with a delicious balcony
in front, in which I sat and rested in a " long chair " all day,
and looked out at the lovely lake and wooded hillside
opposite. People were always going and coming, giving me
entertainment unknowingly. I was shaded by pretty ilex
trees, with white buds and white backs to the leaves, pinkish
young shoots, and feathery flowers. Scarlet rhododendrons
and white clematis were almost the only flowers out. The
air and sun were delightful, though it was really cold at night.
The lake gave a certain moisture to the air, which I had long
been wanting.

One young officer, with a retriever -dog, shared the big
house with me, and was kind. My servant was kind also in
his way; he delighted in bringing me food, watching every
mouthful greedily I did not swallow, and which he could stow
away afterwards in his greasy bundle or brass pot. But I had
a letter of introduction to Dr. Cleghorn ; sent for him, and
asked him to doctor me, which he did in the kindest way, and
most efficiently.

In less than a fortnight I was a new creature, and able to
walk over the hills, which were just then showing their spring
foliage. My one officer had increased to eight before I left.
Each of them had one or two dogs, and they were all very

IX

India 347

good to me, the one lady. But the snow also came down into
the valley, so I determined to go down again, to seek my
sacred plants in the Saharanpur gardens.

The last day in Naini Tal I spent shivering over an unwill-
ing fire in a room too dark to work in, from the clouds. I
found it difficult to get men to carry me down. The natives
have a perfect horror, like cats, of getting wet. John got ten
together before breakfast, and showed them to me, all huddled
up in a circle, looking like bundles of damp dark blankets.
After breakfast all but three had decamped, though it was not
actually raining. We could not wonder at their dread of
getting that one garment wet, poor things. My friends, the
nine young officers, all offered me waterproof sheets and cloaks.
I took one to cover my knees, and started at last, greatly
delighted at the prospect of getting warm again. All the
blossoms which had made the way up so lovely were gone,
but the lower valley was lined with the " sal " (Shorea robus-
tea) in full bloom, a perfect cascade of yellowish-white flowers
scenting the air, like our own lime-flowers in May. It is one
of the best of Indian timber-trees.

At Eanibagh, at the foot of the hills, troops of helpless
women and children were trooping up in different stages of
fever and limpness. The bungalow was overflowing, and the
one strong practical Englishman was wanted everywhere,
cuffing and kicking obstinate coolies, making bargains, holding
babies, cording up extraordinary packages, helping every one.
Not "his" work, he said, for he had come in for rest, but
he could not bear to see those poor English women and
children, left to the mercy of native servants alone. Between
whiles he sat and talked to me, and told me of a lovely lake
near, quite covered with pink lotus flowers. I took one of
the returning carriages to Bareilly, then on by Aligarh to
Saharanpur. The next morning I drove to the gardens soon
after daylight, and called on Mr. Duthie, almost before he was
dressed ; but he soon came down, and walked about the gardens

348 Recollections of a Happy Life CHAP.

with me. He found out the trees I wanted, few of which were
yet in flower, but he said he would let me know in time to
come down and paint them, even if I were up in the hills. He
had expected me for some time, and had arranged with Doctor
and Mrs. J. to take me in when I came. I very soon knew
every one in Saharanpur, but I did not stay long, as my plants
were still some way from flowering.

On the 24th of April I started in a dawk carriage (a heavy
wooden close fly) for Rurki, where we crossed a fine bridge,
guarded by two splendid stone lions, over the Ganges Canal,
which is one of the grandest pieces of engineering in the whole
world — not a sluggish ditch, but a rushing snow-fed river.
There were massive locks and gates, looking solid as the work
of old Egypt. I was suddenly asked where I was going, and
had not the least idea, beyond remembering that it was to the
house of the Head of the College for Engineers. We soon
found Major B. in the road, looking out for me, and his wife
gave me a most kind welcome and a comfortable room.

The next morning Major T., the head of the canal works,
called on me in his dog-cart, and drove me up the edge of the
canal to Hardwar. It was one hundred and seventy feet wide
in some parts, and ten feet deep. The rivers (then dry) which
rushed across it in the rains were taken, some over, some
under it, in a very ingenious way. Major J. drove the most
beautiful thoroughbred horse, and had sent on two others to
different stations, so that we went very fast, and arrived at
his bungalow at the junction of the river and canal in time
for breakfast ; after which he took me to my own quarters — a
delightfully airy little house at the very upper end of the fork,
with rushing water on three sides of me, and Hardwar about
a mile above me. I could just see a few of its domes and
towers through the trees, with lilac hills beyond, and the
snowy mountains over them (when the clouds allowed them
to be visible). It was not picturesque, but decidedly whole-
some quarters.

IX

India 349

The colonel commanding the district sent up a peon with
John and the luggage, to stay and take care of me, and an
elephant was put at my command ; but one ride was enough.
I did not enjoy his slow, slouching walk and high-over-every-
bodyishness. I had a quilt to sit on, with only his driver's turban
to catch hold of if I got nervous ; and when he went quite to
the edge of the bank I felt my feet hanging over the rushing
waters beneath. It did seem a risky seat; but there was
really no danger, his back was so broad. He would have
carried me down the steep bathing-steps to the water, where
the holy fish eat the holy Brahmins, if I had not cried out,
" Stop ! "

The town was a perfect museum of rare old buildings, mar-
vellously carved and painted. On one wall was represented
the taking of some city by the English, who fired off cannon
like pistols, and had a brandy-bottle under the other arm.
We went on beyond the town and through the river, till we
came to the last canal -dam. There we descended from the
top of the big beast, and trusted ourselves to a small bamboo
trustle bedstead fastened to the inflated skins of four huge
beasts, something between buffalo and deer, which floated on
the water, with their legs in the air, looking most helpless and
imbecile. Head and all were shaped naturally, and all the
flesh and bones extracted in some ingenious way through one
leg, which was tied up and tightened with a stick. The Major
and I sat on the frail bit of basket-work, and two men rested
their bodies on the outer skins, paddling with their feet, and
brought us down the river very quickly, perfectly smoothly,
and safely. We were landed close to my home. After this
first experiment, I had these two men, carrying their deer-skins
on their heads and shoulders, following me every morning
when I went to sketch, after which I floated back in the same
easy way to breakfast.

Hardwar is like Benares, all on one side of the river, and
from the opposite bank one gets the finest view of its strange

350 Recollections of a Happy Life CHAP,

old buildings, built at different times and by different races of
Hindus, in all kinds of fantastic architecture, backed by
wooded cliffs and hills. I used to work hard all day, and then
went over to the other bungalow to dine with the Major in
the evening. One night a tremendous thunderstorm came on.
It was dark as pitch ; every lantern was blown out as soon as
lighted; the ground flooded with water; but as there was
every prospect of its going on all night, I started right ahead,
and nearly ran into an aloe hedge. The Major and his servants
all tumbled about in other directions among the big trees, and,
strange to say, got home safely in time. The next morning
the clear river had turned into a torrent of yellow mud, and
only the flattest of rafts could pass under the bridge over the
surplus water of the canal. Many were dashed to pieces every
year at that point. The great snow-peaks were perfectly clear
and white after the storm.

Hardwar is a most enjoyable place for an artist, full of
picturesque bits of street views. I went one morning into a
room overhanging the river, with three fantastic windows and
many-coloured hangings. A tomb was in the centre of the
room, covered with green satin drapery, and a real live Fakir,
entirely naked, was there too, with a long white beard and
some dabs of yellow paint on him, who stared like a wild
beast (as he was). I longed to stay and paint the scene, but
it would have taken long, and the holy man might possibly
have got hungry and eaten me up.

The people at Hardwar seemed a fine race, and were most
friendly. I was bored by the attentions of the police, Captain
B., their chief, having sent directions to all the inspectors
round, telling them to report themselves to me (literally trans-
lated, they were for the time being to consider themselves
under my orders). Deputations were continually pursuing me,
asking me to write my name on a big envelope and state that
I was satisfied with them. I had a perfect troop of people
guarding me everywhere. I started again in a dooly — a box

ix India 351

with shutters carried on four men's shoulders, with four others
to relieve them. They carried me very badly, stopping each
time they changed shoulders or men. We went through
fifteen miles of jungle; got to the half-way bungalow after
six hours, finding all the European rooms full (and I did not
fancy having a windowless cell cleared of the natives, who
were already sleeping like bundles on the floor); so I said I
would sleep in my own dooly in a corner under the sky, and
the English people there gave me a share of their supper.

At Dehra, where I stayed four days, I painted some more
of the sacred plants, which I caught in flower. Dehra is
famous for its bamboos, which, however, had followed the
fashion and flowered the year before, so looked at their worst
when I was there, though they were throwing up fresh canes
from the roots. The old ones were very shabby, dead, or
dying. It was the same year that all the English bamboos
flowered and died, as well as those in Spain and France. In
India they only died down and started afresh.

At Dehra I also had the luck to get rid of John ! I had
hardly seen him for some days (a common occurrence), and
said to my landlord I feared he was ill again. " 111, ma'am !
He's drunk, and he's been dead drunk ever since you came."
I was too glad of an excuse to be quit of him, so paid him his
enormous wages, and his journey back to Bombay, and he
took it quietly and went. I felt free again, and drove off to
the foot of the hills, then was carried up the zigzags to
Masuri, feeling determined to be tied to no more idle, lying
servants, but to pay local people whenever I was well, who
would take far better care of me than if I had a go-between
like John, to make them do all his work, and only get half the
money given for them.

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